AFP/Cairo
An Egyptian army officer was killed yesterday in the collapse of a tunnel in the restive Sinai Peninsula on the border with the Gaza Strip, security sources said.
Another officer was injured in the accident which occurred as the armed forces were trying to blow up the tunnel in the border town of Rafah.
The army has stepped up destruction of tunnels from Gaza that it says are used to smuggle arms, food and money by the Hamas Palestinian militant group, the de facto rulers of the coastal enclave.
More than 1,600 tunnels have been destroyed by the army since the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in July 2013.
In October, two officers and a soldier died when a similar tunnel between Gaza and Egypt collapsed.
Egypt suspects Palestinian militants of aiding jihadist attacks against its security forces in the Sinai that have increased since Mursi’s ouster and killed scores of policemen and soldiers.
Cairo has poured troops into the restive peninsula to battle the militants.
