CAIRO — An Egyptian security official says authorities have confiscated two pick-up trucks carrying 60 anti-tank missiles smuggled across the border from Libya. The official says two truck drivers were arrested and the weapons seized just south of Cairo on Wednesday morning. The two were heading from Marsa Matrouh, 430 km northwest of the capital on the Mediterranean Coast, to the largely lawless Sinai Peninsula where weapons are regularly smuggled to Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip through underground tunnels. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Lawlessness has been rife in Sinai since the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Weapons have flowed from Libya into the peninsula, where militants have grown in strength. Meanwhile, an Egyptian judicial official said a military tribunal has acquitted more than a dozen protesters, but handed prison sentences to a dozen others on charges of assaulting the army during clashes over an island in southern Cairo. The case of the disputed Qursayah Island has been a rallying point for rights groups for the past six years. The Egyptian military has been trying to expel villagers, saying the island is military property. The official said the court ruled on 26 defendants arrested in clashes with the military in November. — Agencies
