(Reuters) Ahmed Aboulenein - An Egyptian military effort to recruit and arm tribal fighters to take on Islamic State militants in Sinai is failing, according to security sources and tribal figures. The scheme has been hampered by the military's reluctance to provide weapons to local fighters and by attacks by Islamic State, which are scaring off would-be tribal troops. In January, Islamic State wrote in its weekly magazine Naba' that the Sinai branch had killed 1,400 people in the previous 15 months. A Sinai Province video shows nine prisoners beheaded or shot by the group in January. The men all said they had fought alongside or provided intelligence to Egyptian security forces.
2016-03-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive