A soldier from the Egyptian army special forces mans a temporary checkpoint outside Sharm el-Sheikh airport.

:: Egypt’s interior ministry has announced the areest of six people belonging to an extremist cell who planned on attacking churches on Eid al-Fitr and the anniversary of the June 30 protests.

“Information of the security services has revealed the ones involved in planning of these operations and they took some areas in the desert and remote places for their gathering and hiding to form, appointing its elements to carry out several hostile operations in conjunction with the celebrations of Eid al-Fitr and the passage of four years of the June 30 revolution, to intimidate citizens, spoil their joy and try to divide national unity,” a statement from the interior ministry read.

The statement added that it has been dealing with this information and developed an integrated plan to pursue the cell using all modern technological means, which resulted in confirming their involvement in their plan to blow up a shop owned by a Christian in Damietta province in April 2017.

The information revealed that those elements participated in the implementation of their hostile plan using double suicide bombing by two people, one of whom blew himself up with a suicide belt in the church, to be followed by the bombing of the second one after the gathering of the security services elements and large numbers of citizens as a result of the incident with the aim of causing the greatest possible casualties.