Egyptian vessel attacked by IS

A navy vessel off the Mediterranean coast of Egypt’s Rafah caught on fire after an exchange of fire with militants on the coast, military spokesperson Mohamed Samir said in a Thursday statement.

Other navy boats came to rescue the crew as their vessel spewed a plume of smoke. It then swerved off the road and the driver was killed, it added.

The latest major attack by the group saw about 20 Egyptian soldiers killed in multiple attacks on army checkpoints.

Sinai Province, the most lethal militant group in Egypt, past year pledged loyalty to Islamic State, which controls large tracts of territory in Syria and Iraq and has a presence in Egypt’s neighbour Libya. The sea route avoids the overland journey through Sinai, where Islamic militants target government forces.

An AFP photographer and a witness in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, just across the border, said the boat was struck at least three kilometres (two miles) from shore.

The attack on the ship is the first of its kind by the ISIS affiliate in Egypt, representing a qualitative evolution in the military capabilities of the group, whose campaign of violence has been mostly restricted to the northern part of Sinai bordering Gaza and Israel.

CNN was unable to verify the authenticity of the photographs or the group’s account of what happened.

The State of Sinai, formerly known as Ansar Bait El-Maqdis, has claimed responsibility for the deadliest attacks. It is estimated that about 100 militants were killed during the fighting.

Later in the day a small bomb exploded in a residential area of the upscale Cairo neighbourhood of Heliopolis, wounding a police officer, security sources said.