CAIRO, Jan 24 (Aswat Masriya) - On the 65th commemoration of Police Day, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expressed gratitude and appreciation for the efforts undertaken by security personnel in what he described as a war that Egypt is waging "on its own".

Families of "martyred" police officers went on stage to receive commemorative tokens on behalf of their deceased family members, before Sisi made his speech.

"There is effectively a war in Sinai and other places," Sisi said, "we are now living in a war like that of 1967 which lasted until 1970 and ended with the 1973 war."

"A thousand tons of explosives have been seized until now, with the ton costing $400,000,” Sisi commented, "Ten or twenty multiples of that figure have either exploded or detonated."

Following the ouster of former president Mohamed Mursi, who hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sinai Peninsula has become a restive area with a number of attacks targeting security personnel, police officers, as well as high-ranking judges. 

The celebration comes a day before the sixth anniversary of the January 25 uprising which occurred on Police Day in 2011 to protest police brutality. The crowds protested for the next 18 days, calling for the removal of the entire regime. President Hosni Mubarak then stepped down.

In his speech, Sisi pointed to a few events in Egypt’s recent past in an attempt to "remind the people" of those events. The president first mentioned July 26, which was the day he called on the Egyptian people to "mandate" the military to fight terrorism and violence.

He then mentioned June 30, which witnessed mass protests demanding the overthrow of former President Mohamed Mursi and also June 3, when the military announced Mursi’s removal from office in 2013.

There was no direct mention of the January 25 uprising in the speech. As Sisi warned about threats to the nation’s unity, he made a reference to attempts at instigating fall outs between the people and the army and between the army and the police in 2011.