WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — President Barack Obama and his advisers are assessing whether to evacuate US peacekeeping troops from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula because of the growing Daesh threat in the area, US media reported.
"The Obama administration is considering pulling troops out of a base in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in part due to the growing threat from ISIS [Islamic State or Daesh] and other militants," CNN reported on Tuesday evening.
The US troops would be moved to another location in the less sensitive southern part of the Sinai Peninsula, the report noted. They currently serve with the Multinational Force and Observers mission that has monitored the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty of the past 37 years.
The North Camp at el Gorah is the largest installation under the international operation. Some small, remote observer stations have already been evacuated, the report concluded.
In September 2015 four US troops were injured in one attack in Sinai and an Daesh-associated group was suspected of carrying it out. Later that month US military personnel with the treaty monitoring force were pulled out of a small site in northeast Sinai.
In October 2015, a Russian A321 passenger jet crashed over the Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board. The Islamic State assumed responsibility for causing the crash and claimed it was caused by a bomb placed onboard the aircraft.
