18 policemen killed as ISIL strikes in Egypt’s Sinai

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ISIL has claimed responsibility for an attack on a security convoy in Egypt's strife-torn Sinai Peninsula on Monday in which at least 18 policemen were killed.

The attackers detonated an improvised explosive device which destroyed three armored vehicles and a signal-jamming vehicle near Arish, capital of North Sinai Province, security and medical sources said.

The attack turned into a gunfight and the militants also opened fire on ambulance workers, injuring four, sources told Reuters.

Sunni Muslim militants are waging an insurgency in Sinai, aiming to topple the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. /AFP Photo

At least 18 policemen, two of them officers, died in the violence, and a brigadier general lost a leg in the blast, several sources at Arish hospital said.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted by its news agency Amaq. The Sunni Muslim militants are waging an insurgency in the rugged, thinly populated Sinai, aiming to topple the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and police there since 2013, when the military, led by Sisi, ousted Egypt's Islamist president Mohamed Mursi after mass protests against his rule.

Egyptians carry the coffin of a soldier killed a day earlier in the restive Sinai Peninsula in an attack by ISIL, during a funeral ceremony on July 8, 2017. The attack was one the deadliest against the military in a jihadist insurgency that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers in the past four years. /AFP Photo‍

At least 23 Egyptian soldiers were killed when suicide car bombs tore through two military checkpoints in North Sinai in July, in one of the bloodiest assaults on security forces in years.

The Interior Ministry said several policemen were killed or injured in the attack, without giving figures.

The prime minister's office called it a "traitorous incident."

"Prime Minister Sherif Ismail affirmed the state's determination to fight these criminal actions that target the safety and will of citizens with its full force," a government statement said.

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Source(s): Reuters