CAIRO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian troops have arrested two terror suspects and destroyed 14 hideouts in the central part of North Sinai province, the Egyptian army announced Tuesday.
"The forces also destroyed half an acre of marijuana plant and seven storehouses of marijuana seeds," Egyptian military spokesman Tamer al-Refaay said in a statement.
The raid came while North Sinai is under the recently renewed partial three-month curfew, along with a nationwide state of emergency that was recently extended.
North Sinai used to be the center of Egypt's terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers following the military's removal of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
The attacks later extended to several other provinces including the capital Cairo, and started to target the Coptic minority via church bombings and shootings.
To break a taboo, terrorists even attacked a mosque in North Sinai's Arish city last November, killing at least 310 Muslim worshippers and injuring more than 120 others.
The is the deadliest terror attack and the first against a mosque in Egypt's modern history. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the mosque attack.
Most of the terror attacks were carried out by the so-called Wilayat Sinai (Sinai state or province), a Sinai-based group affiliated with the Islamic State (IS), a regional terrorist group.
Following the mosque attack, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered the army to restore security and stability in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula within three months.
Egyptian security forces have so far killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by Sisi, then the army chief, following Morsi's ouster in 2013.
