International Business Times brings us the story.
The Islamic State (Isis)’s offshoot in Egypt – the Sinai Province – claims it launched a rocket and destroyed an Egyptian Navy frigate in the Mediterranean sea.
The IS affiliate released pictures of what it said was a guided anti-tank rocket attack on the vessel off the coast of northern Sinai, in Rafah, an area bordering Israel and the Gaza strip. The Egyptian military said it exchanged fire with militants off the coast and the boat caught fire, but there were no casualties as result of the incident. It did not mention that the boat was destroyed.
Spill says he think’s the ship is a Chinese built Type 062 gunboat, which the Egyptian Navy does operate. It looks pretty close to me. “Frigate” is a fairly flexible term in overseas navies, and there also might be something lost in translation.
The first picture shows what appears to be an anti-tank guided missile in flight inside the red circle. The fireball seems awfully big for an ATGM warhead. On the other hand, some missiles like the Russian Koronet have a fairly large warhead.
Other pictures clearly show the vessel remained afloat after the attack, with firefighting efforts underway.
Eyad Baba—AP
Whether there were no casualties aboard, well, we’ll see.
As Eagle One notes in his post, the cost of inshore patrolling just went up.
XBradTC 
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