Militants attack checkpoint in Egypt’s Sinai, kill 5 police

Egypt’s North Sinai has witnessed many violent attacks by militants since the January 2011 revolution that toppled president Hosni Mubarak. Besides the five deaths, three members of the riot police were injured, the source said. Seventeen people were wounded.

The district also houses several hotels used by tourists visiting Cairo because of its proximity to the pyramids.

The Islamic State jihadist group’s Egyptian affiliate, the Sinai Province, claimed that attack.

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

The interior ministry said police officers, who were seeking to apprehend ‘Muslim Brotherhood terrorists’, attempted to defuse a time bomb but failed, according to online English-language edition of the Egyptian newspaper.

“Unidentified gunmen opened fire on security forces at El-Etlawi square in the centre of El-Arish”, the ministry said in a statement, referring to the North Sinai provincial capital.

Egypt has been conducting anti-terror operations in the last two years within Sinai region.

Jihadists say their attacks are in retaliation for a brutal government crackdown targeting Morsi’s supporters that has left hundreds dead and thousands imprisoned.