IS group claims responsibility for ambush on Egypt army

A bomb blast killed two Egyptian police officers and wounded five others in an attack on an armoured vehicle in the Sinai Peninsula, the interior ministry said.

Unidentified militants planted an improvised explosive device on the road and later remotely detonated it as the vehicle conducted a search operation, the sources said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

According to the source, an air raid killed 20 militants and wounded 15 others also on Wednesday at their hideouts near Arish International Airport while a massive terrorist cell was moving from southern Arish northwards to carry out terror activities.

The authorities say hundreds of policemen and soldiers have been killed in attacks, mainly in North Sinai, since 2013.

A colonel and three soldiers were killed in a bomb explosion in Arish on Wednesday.

The Sinai Province militant group which is affiliated with the Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria [Daesh] claimed responsibility on Friday for a deadly attack that struck North Sinai’s al-Arish city.

Egypt has been hit with a wave of suicide bombings and militant attacks that intensified after the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

The local Daesh affiliate has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.