9 Peacekeepers Die in Sinai Plane Crash

[Scurrilous]

Source: The Guardian

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"As many as nine foreign peacekeepers, including up to eight French soldiers, were killed Sunday when a French plane attached to the Sinai's multinational peacekeeping force crashed in a remote, mountainous area of the desert, the force's spokesman said.

Officials said they believed there were no survivors.

More soldiers than usual were aboard the aircraft at the time of the crash because it was on a training mission, said force spokesman Normand St. Pierre. Officials were still trying to determine the nationalities of all the victims.

The crash occurred in sunny, clear weather between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. local time, almost exactly in the middle of the vast Sinai Peninsula, about 30 miles from a town called Nakhl, police said.

The peacekeeping force, officially called the Multinational Force & Observers, is an independent international organization created by Egypt and Israel to monitor their border in the Sinai after a 1979 peace deal."



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6612066,00.html

[maddezmom]

1. Nine dead as French military aircraft crashes in Egypt's Sinai

CAIRO (AFP) - Nine military personnel including eight French from the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) peacekeeping mission were killed when a military plane crashed in Egypt's northern Sinai region Sunday.

"Nine people on board the plane died in the crash. This included eight French crew members," an Egyptian security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

MFO and French military sources said they had received reports that a French transport aircraft belonging to the peacekeeping force had crashed but did not immediately confirm any casualties.

"Yes, unfortunately we have had reports of a plane crash. It was a French aircraft carrying eight French crew members. There was one other officer on board whose identity we are still trying to get," the MFO director general's representative, Normand St. Pierre, told AFP.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070506/wl_afp/egyptfranceaircrash_070506104946