Five members of the Egyptian security forces have been killed at a checkpoint in Sheikh Zuweid, the northern part of the country’s Sinai Peninsula where militants struck.
Six other troop members were injured in the attack and taken to a military hospital in El-Arish, northern Sinai.
Three militants were killed by security personnel during the firefight, reports quoting anonymous officials said.
Egypt has been battling militants in northern Sinai for years. After the military overthrew Mohammed Morsi from power in 2013, there has been an increase in violence and instability across the country, with militants attacking security forces, minority Christians, and those accused of collaborating with the military and police.
In November 2017, militants killed more than 235 people and wounded 109 at a mosque in North Sinai after detonating a bomb and gunning down worshippers.
Worshippers were finishing Friday prayers at the mosque when the bomb exploded. Around 40 gunmen set up positions outside the mosque with jeeps and opened fire from different directions as people tried to flee the explosion.
In July, same year, suicide car bombs exploded at two military checkpoints in the Sinai, killing at least 23 soldiers.
Last year, in July, Egypt’s military said it killed 18 suspected terrorists in aerial and ground operations in the restive North Sinai. The army said in a statement that its forces succeeded in foiling “an attack by takfiri terrorist elements on one of the security complexes” in the town of Bir al-Abd.
Egypt has however seen a slowdown in terrorist attacks from the Islamic State since February 2018, when the military launched a massive operation in Sinai as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts on its western border with Libya.
