The North Sinai Security Directorate on Wednesday intensified security around its headquarters, the court and all police stations with additional troops, armored vehicles and barricades.
It has also increased security at the entrances and exits to Arish and deployed patrols to search cars at checkpoints on the Qantara-Rafah international road.
Sixty-six people were arrested Tuesday in a security crackdown.
This came after 14 members of the Tawhid and Jihad group were sentenced to death for killing police in Sinai. However, a source close to the jihadis said they do not target security points, as their real enemy is Israel.
For their part, the Salafi movement and the Muslim Brotherhood are negotiating with armed groups in Sinai not to carry out attacks on Israeli targets along the border so as not to embarrass the government domestically and internationally, but have so far failed to reach an agreement.
Meanwhile, residents of Al-Maghara village south of Arish continued to block the road connecting Arish to Central Sinai for the third day in a row. They are protesting the court's refusal to grant bail to a man who was arrested on charges of drug trafficking. The blockage closed down the cement plants in the area.
Mohamed Ghanem, an elder of Central Sinai, claims the police have fabricated the charge. He said Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal Eddin promised him personally to release the suspect if the road is reopened, but the residents refused to do so.
Turkish Anadolu News Agency reported that residents from the villages of Abu Egeila, Wadi al-Omr, Barath, and Maghara have assembled again to press officials to drop verdicts issued in absentia against their relatives under the former regime. They also demanded a retrial of criminals and to provide their villages with water, electricity and roads.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
