Egyptian security officials said an army officer and a conscript were killed and five soldiers injured when their armored vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the restive northern part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to reporters, said the explosion took place Monday morning in the Taweel al-Amir area south of Rafah and that the injured were taken to the military hospital in el-Arish.
Last Friday the US Defense Department said four US soldiers and two Multinational Force and Observers’ peacekeepers were injured by improvised explosive devices in the Northeast Sinai region.
Egypt has been battling an Islamic insurgency in northern Sinai for years, but attacks against the army and police increased after the July 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi.
The Islamic State affiliate based in Sinai has claimed a series of large-scale assaults there.
