Egypt says army killed head of ISIL’s Sinai branch

The leader of the Sinai branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has been killed in a series of air strikes south of the peninsula’s el-Arish town, Egypt’s military has said.

Abu Duaa al-Ansari was killed together with 45 other ISIL fighters in an operation guided by “accurate intelligence”, Brigadier-General Mohammed Samir, the military’s chief spokesman, said on his Facebook page.

He also claimed that the army destroyed arms and ammunition stores used by the group, but did not say when the operation took place.

There was no immediate confirmation from Sinai Province, ISIL’s offshoot in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian forces have been battling the group for years but the violence has grown deadlier since the 2013 overthrow by the military of President Mohamed Morsi.

Aaron Reese is an Egypt security analyst, specialising in Sinai told Al Jazeera that while this is a big victory for Egyptian security forces, it may not reduce attacks.

“The US government estimate says that ISIS in Sinai only has several hundred fighters so if they Egyptian security forces have killed 45 of them in one blow that would be a major defeat [to the armed group].

“But the Egyptian government has announced major defeats like this before, but that has not affected ISIS’s operational capacity so I’m not sure that I would yet look to see a decline in attacks by the ISIS,” Reese told Al Jazeera.

The campaign has killed hundreds of soldiers and police and has also targeted Western interests within the country.

ISIL controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and has a presence in Libya, which borders Egypt.