The Egyptian military announced plans to double the size of its buffer zone in the Sinai to 1 km after discovering unexpectedly long tunnels from Gaza. The Interior Ministry stated that “foreign intelligence” was behind recent terrorist attacks in Sinai, promising to identify the entities after current counterterrorism operations. Egypt has been ranked 13th on the Global Terrorism Index. An Egyptian popular music icon labeled Islamic State emir Abu Bakr Baghdadi the “emir of criminals” and his followers as “a bunch of crazies” in a newly released song.
