Suspected Islamic State terrorists blew up a natural gas pipeline Saturday in Egypt's restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, causing a fire but no casualties, Egyptian security officials said.
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The officials said the suspected terrorists planted explosives under a pipeline in the town of Bir al-Abd.
The blast sent thick flames of fire shooting into the sky, and authorities stopped the flow of gas to extinguish the fire, according to eyewitnesses.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to media and the eyewitnesses asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The ISIS affiliate, which is based in northern Sinai, however, has claimed previous attacks on gas pipelines between Egypt and both Jordan and Israel.
Saturday's attack came as ISIS terrorists have suffered heavy losses in recent months against Egyptian security forces, aided by armed Bedouin tribesmen, who have intensified their efforts to eliminate the group.
On April 27, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center reported a spike in ISIS activity in the two weeks prior to Saturday's attack. It attributed the rise to the organization's declaration of a revenge campaign for the deaths of former leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and the group's former spokesman, who were killed in February in a US raid in Idlib, Syria.
According to the report, this activity included multiple attacks in the northern Sinai, including an April 25 attack on an Egyptian army patrol south of the town of Sheikh Zuweid in which two soldiers were killed and a third wounded. An exchange of fire took place on the same day between ISIS terrorists and fighters from a Sinai Bedouin tribal union that supports the Egyptian army.
In a report released on April 7, the Meir Amit Center noted that Egypt had announced a six-month extension of a presidential decree announcing a special security situation in the Sinai Peninsula.
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