CAIRO – Egypt's Interior Ministry told police in the Sinai peninsula to raise a state of emergency after obtaining intelligence that militants might attack their forces there, state news agency MENA reported. Officials have expressed growing worries about security in the desert region which borders Israel and is home to a number of tourist resorts. “The Minister of Interior has raised the level of emergency in North and South Sinai after receiving information that militant groups intend to attack police buildings there,” Interior Ministry official General Osama Ismail said, according to MENA. In August last year militant gunmen killed at least 15 Egyptian policemen in an assault on a police station at the border between Egypt and Israel, before seizing two military vehicles and attempting to storm the border. It was the deadliest incident in Egypt's tense Sinai border region in decades. Israel has accused Palestinian militants in Gaza of involvement in militant activity in Sinai, where insecurity has grown since Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt's 2011 revolution. President Mohamed Mosri has pledged to get a grip on security in Egypt but struggled to assert control over an entrenched security establishment. Last week thousands of riot police and conscripts across the country went on strike over a variety of grievances. The Sinai Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about 60,000 km2 (23,000 sq mi) in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two continents. The bulk of the peninsula is divided administratively into two of Egypt's 27 governorates (with three more straddling the Suez Canal area), and has a population of approximately 500,000 people. In addition to its formal name, Egypt – Agencies
