On Monday, the Egypt military thwarted an attempt to smuggle a large shipment of weapons, ammunition, and narcotics near the border with Libya.
According to Colonel, Gharib Abdel-Hafez, the mission was carried out by Egyptian border guards in the Great Sand Sea area, south of the Siwa Oasis.
He revealed that two four-wheel-drive vehicles were seized without license plates. These are often used by terrorist groups for infiltration and smuggling operations.
During the raid, 7 FN sniper rifles, 2 Kalashnikovs, 13 automatic rifles, 5 Beretta rifles, RPGs, 12.7 calibre machine guns, 2 14.5 calibre machine guns and 8 magazines A mechanism, 7 FN sniper safes, 2 Dana Arbi G, were captured. This is in addition to 1,162 rounds of different calibres, a satellite phone, and one million narcotic tablets.
Abdel-Hafez added that border guard forces will “impose their security control on all strategic directions of the state to secure Egypt’s borders, in conjunction with the intensification of tightening procedures and control over all the state’s border crossings and ports.”
This operation comes as a continuation of the efforts of the border guards to “inflict fatal blows on criminal elements and smugglers, and to abort plans and attempts aimed at harming society and Egyptian national security.”
Recently, EgyptِAir Maintenance and Engineering Company said that it had finished preparing a plane belonging to Libyan Airlines. The Airbus A320 with registration letters 5A-LAK had been stored at the Benghazi airport for a long period of time.
The front lower carriage of the plane was altered and the entire plane was completely painted with the Libyan Airlines logo.
Engineer Yahya Zakaria, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of EgyptAir Maintenance and Engineering, said that relations with Libyan companies are among the company’s priorities. He added that this is part of the implementation of Egypt’s vision towards supporting Libya in various fields. This further falls within the framework of the good historical relations that unite the two companies.