Cairo is urging Tribal leaders to help boost security in the Sinai Peninsula where an attack on August 5 killed 16 border guards.

Cairo is urging Tribal leaders to help boost security in the Sinai Peninsula where an attack on August 5 killed 16 border guards.

The defense minister, General Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, asked tribal leaders who gathered on Monday in El-Arish in the north of the peninsula to "support the security forces and the campaign" in the area, government daily Al-Ahram said.

Sissi gave them an assurance that the objective of the campaign was to "take full control of the situation in Sinai" and said that the army's role was to "support interior ministry forces."
He also said that the names of the perpetrators of the August 5 attack, attributed to extremists, will be announced at the end of the inquiry into the incident.

After killing the Egyptian guards the still unidentified attackers burst through a border crossing into Palestinian occupied territories where they were killed by Israeli tank and helicopter fire.

In the wake of the attack on the army outpost, President Mohamad Mursi dismissed his powerful defense minister, replaced his spy chief and sacked top security and political officials in the Sinai.