The Egyptian leader has ordered troops to retake the Sinai after 16 border guards were killed.

Egyptian President, Mohamed Mursi yesterday August 6 vowed that he will retake control of the Sinai after an attack near the Israeli border on Sunday evening left at least 16 Egyptian guards dead and seven others wounded.

President Mursi held an emergency meeting with military and security officials after the attack. Speaking later in a television address early yesterday morning, the President said he had directed security forces, the armed forces as well as the internal police to move swiftly in capturing those behind what he described as a vicious attack, Al Jazeera Television said.

The Egyptian leader warned that the incident will not be taken lightly, adding that security forces will henceforth ensure effective control over all areas within Sinai. He promised that those behind the attack and their accomplices will pay a high price for the act.

The attack on a border post where the Egyptian, Israeli and Gaza borders meet took place at 8 pm on Sunday, the BBC said. It is said to have happened just as the guards had stopped work for the traditional ‘iftar’ meal that breaks the daily fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Masked gunmen dressed as Bedouin nomads are said to have opened fire on the border guards with guns and rocket-propelled grenades, Egyptian State television said.

Israel yesterday said it had found the bodies of the eight gunmen who killed the Egyptian border policemen. Defence Minister, Ehud Barak told a Parliamentary committee in Jerusalem that the heavily armed attackers had captured a border post at Rafah, commandeered cars and tried to smash their way over the border into Israel after the attack inside Egypt. One vehicle apparently blew up at the Kerem Shalom crossing, while the other was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force after entering Israel.

The Egyptian army surrounded the town of Rafah on the Egyptian side of the border in the early hours of yesterday in an attempt to stop remaining militants from escaping, Egyptian website al-Ahram reported. Meanwhile, Egypt yesterday closed its Rafah border crossing with Gaza indefinitely, the BBC reported. A source of lucrative tourist income to Egypt, the Sinai is home to both Egypt's Red Sea resorts and Bedouin tribes people.