Army: Top Beit al-Maqdis militant killed in Sinai

Shahtah Farhan al-Maatqa was killed in a raid in the town of Rafah on the border with the Gaza Strip, the army spokesman said in a statement online.
 
He was "a key leader of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis ... and had been involved in attacks that targeted the armed forces and the police" in the Sinai Peninsula, the statement said.
 
On September 20, the army announced the death of another leader of the group, who was then identified as an explosives expert who was attempting with three others to plant a roadside bomb.
 
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis ("Partisans of the Holy House") is Egypt's deadliest militant group.
 
Egyptian armed forces launched large scale military action against militants in the Sinai Peninsula earlier in September, in what officials described as the largest mobilization of force in the area since the 1973 war with Israel.
 
The action comes in the wake of rising instability and almost daily attacks in the region since the July 3, 2013 coup by the Egyptian military which unseated democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi.
 
Since then, armed groups conduct a campaign against state institutions and the military. The Muslim Brotherhood has condemned the violent attacks and denied any link.
 
Muslim Brotherhood activists, meanwhile, have held weekly demonstrations in protest across Egypt, which the army has violently repressed, killing more than 1,400 and leaving tens of thousands in prison.