Three soldiers were killed Wednesday during an attack on an army patrol near Sinai’s Sheikh Zuweid.
An IED ambush caught the patrol near Al-Wahshi checkpoint. At least one soldier was injured, according to local reports. The army is yet to officially announce its account of the attack.
The Sinai Province, affiliated to the “Islamic State” (IS) in Egypt, claimed responsibility for the attack and published photos depicting the details, followed by a photo report of recent attacks in North Sinai over the course of the past month.
Unconfirmed reports said militants also conducted a series of attacks on Wednesday using IEDs near villages of Ber Beda and Khreza in central Sinai.
Egypt has been engaged in a war on terror in the North Sinai region since mid-2011. Violence by extremist militants increased in the region following the 25 January Revolution in 2011.
Violence significantly surged after the military in 2013 removed former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood government from office following the uprising in June against their turbulent one-year rule.
The Egyptian government blames the violence on the Muslim Brotherhood, which it dubbed a “terrorist organisation” in 2015. The group denies its involvement and insists it is committed to peaceful forms of resistance. Much of the violence has been claimed by the extremist group Sinai Province, formerly known as Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis.
