Cairo: Egypt began work on doubling the width of a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip to prevent militants infiltrating from the Palestinian enclave, security officials said.
The buffer was initially planned to be 500 metres (546 yard) wide, but is now being expanded by another 500 metres.
The authorities began evacuating 1,220 homes in the area demarcated for the expansion of the zone, security officials said.
“We have started evacuating the residents... but no houses have been demolished so far,” one said.
Construction of the zone comes in the wake of an October 24 suicide bombing that killed 30 Egyptian soldiers and wounded scores more. After that incident, Egypt declared a three-month emergency in parts of North Sinai, a remote but strategic region bordering Israel and Gaza.
Egypt suspects Palestinian militants of aiding jihadist attacks against its security forces that have increased since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013. The army has also stepped up destruction of tunnels from Gaza that it says are used to smuggle arms, food and money by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Syrian opposition figure declines Moscow parley
AMMAN: Prominent Syrian opposition figure Mouaz Al Khatib said yesterday he had turned down an invitation to a Moscow meeting with Syrian government officials, in a further blow to Russian efforts to find a solution to the Syrian conflict.
“We decided to decline ... this is because the conditions we think are necessary to ensure the success of the meeting are not available,” the moderate Islamist said in an online post.
When he headed the Western-backed Syrian political opposition in 2012, Khatib called for negotiations with President Bashar al-Assad to pave the way for a handover of power.Agencies
