MOSCOW (Sputnik) — An Egyptian military aircraft crashed Thursday near the border with Libya because of a technical failure, killing four crew members and wounding two others, spokesman of Egypt's armed forces Brig. Gen. Mohamed Samir said.
"During the work on… prosecution of terrorist elements by the ground forces, an air force technical malfunction happened suddenly, resulting in the crash of the aircraft, killing four heroes of the crew and wounding two,' Samir said via his Facebook page.
The troops engaged in a joint anti-terror raid successfully destroyed four vehicles belonging to alleged terrorists and seized five others, the spokesman added.
Egypt has been fighting a jihadist insurgency since the army, led by President Abdel Fattah Sisi, overthrew the then Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Currently, a state of emergence is imposed in Northern Sinai, one of the most troubled provinces of Egypt in terms of extremist activity.