Egypt army attacks Sinai Islamists as militancy spreads

"(Reuters) - The Egyptian army launched an attack against Islamist militants in North Sinai on Saturday, killing at least nine people, security officials said.
Two Egyptian soldiers were killed late on Saturday when an improvised explosive device detonated in a road in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid near the border with the Gaza Strip, security sources said......

NEW TARGETS

The military-backed government now also appears to be turning its sights on other groups - opposed to the Islamists - who helped topple Mubarak in 2011 hoping to establish an open civilian democracy in Egypt.
A judicial source said the public prosecutor was examining complaints from private citizens against 35 prominent democracy and rights activists, many of them important players in the 2011 uprising.
They include activist Ahmed Maher, blogger Ahmed Douma and liberal politician Amr Hamzawi, the judicial source said.
Such prosecutions have long been seen as a tool of political intimidation in Egypt and are often instigated by supporters of the government. Liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei, who was deputy president in the interim government before resigning, has been targeted in a similar case.
The latest complaints accuse activists of accepting money from the United States and other countries, the source said.

(The Egyptian military Junta accuses activists of receiving US money, while the Junta feasts on $1.3 billion in yearly, direct US support)

Hamzawi said on Twitter that "claims that I got foreign money are completely untrue, the campaign of fabrication and distortion must immediately stop".
"These are fake accusations," rights lawyer Gamal Eid told Reuters. "(The complaint) is from people who know that it is false but who try to silence activists' demands for the realisation of the demands of the revolution."
The prosecutor's office was not available for comment on the issue.
Separately, a leftist lawyer accused of belonging to a secret organisation and spreading lies about the military appeared before military prosecutors in Suez, but was later released, judicial sources said.
Haitham Mohamedeen, a rights activist who belongs to the Revolutionary Socialist movement, a group critical of the army, had been arrested in Suez on Thursday. It was not clear whether the case against him had been dropped.
Egyptian journalist Ahmed Abu Deraa also remained in detention after his arrest in North Sinai on Wednesday.
The military prosecutor accused him of spreading lies and giving military information to secret organisations, a source at the prosecutor's office said.
"The detention of Ahmed Abu Deraa harks back to the Mubarak era, when journalists faced formidable obstacles reporting on military activity in the Sinai peninsula," said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists."