Video Shows Sinai Terrorists Shooting Down Egyptian Air Force Helicopter

Terrorists operating in the Sinai Peninsula shot down an Egyptian Air Force helicopter using a shoulder-fired missile, then posted the video on YouTube on Monday.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the militants were with the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis jihadist group.

A militant was seen in the video holding a missile launcher on his shoulder, then firing at a helicopter overhead. The helicopter could be seen moments later plunging to the ground in a ball of smoke and fire.

A Sinai-based jihadi militant launches a missile at an Egyptian Air Force helicopter. His head was blurred on the video posted online (Screenshot: YouTube)

The Jerusalem Post reported that five Egyptian military personnel were killed in the attack, which occurred in the Haruba district, near the border with the Gaza Strip.

As in other jihadi videos, the images were embellished with bellicose-sounding music.

The projectile flew toward the helicopter flying above Egypt's Sinai Peninsula (Screenshot: YouTube)

The helicopter moments later plunged to the ground in a ball of smoke and fire (Screenshot: YouTube)

The Post reported that the words of the song were from a verse in the Koran titled "The hand of God is what struck."

A militant identified as "Abu Osama al-Masri" said in a voice over that the current Cairo government faces a similar fate to that of Syria, Libya, and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who stepped down after the so-called Arab Spring uprising.

"Did the United States help [Mubarak]?" the speaker said. "If you do not cease collaborating with the fighters of Muslims, we will stand against you and all of your planes won't help because we are the soldiers of God."

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claimed responsibility for attacks last week in Egypt that killed 12, including the detonation of a car bomb outside the Cairo Security Directorate.

Both Egyptian and Israeli security officials are concerned about the growing lawlessness in the Sinai. In a study for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Israel Channel 2’s Arab affairs analyst Ehud Yaari described some of the networks operating in the peninsula: “These networks—some clandestine, some with significant public profile—represent old smuggling gangs partly converted to terrorism, newly formed Bedouin factions adhering to Salafi jihadist doctrines, and affiliates of Palestinian organizations in Gaza, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, and the Dughmush clan’s Army of Islam.”

“Egyptian authorities have also uncovered Hizballah penetration of the Sinai, capturing several members of the organization and sentencing them to as many as fifteen years’ imprisonment in 2010,” Yaari wrote earlier this month.

Here is the video that was posted to YouTube:

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