Six police officers were killed and ten injured in an attack on a checkpoint near the town of el-Arish in northern Sinai in Egypt, local media reported on Monday.

CAIRO (Sputnik) — The attackers detonated a car bomb at the checkpoint, according to the Egyptian newspaper El Fagr.

Egypt has been fighting a rise in terrorist attacks in northern Sinai since the army, led by President Abdel Fattah Sisi, overthrew then Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. Police and security forces have been the target of deadly attacks by Islamists in the area. </s> At least seven Egyptian policemen, including one officer, have been killed in terrorist attacks at different checkpoints in the North Sinai city of Arish.

The country’s Interior Ministry said this in a statement on Wednesday.

“Four terrorists have been killed, including a suicide bomber who set off his explosives at one of the checkpoints attacked,’’ the statement said.

It added that security forces had frustrated terrorist attacks that took place in southern and western Arish on Tuesday night.

Some explosive devices, automatic weapons, hand-made bombs were seized, according to the statement.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, yet.

Egypt’s government has been battling Islamist militants centred in northern Sinai since the military ousted the Islamist leader, Mohamed Morsi, who died on June 17 after collapsing in court.

Some Islamist groups, including the Sinai-based Islamic State that claimed responsibility of most of the previous attacks, had pledged revenge for his death. </s> Six police officers have been killed and three wounded in a bomb explosion near pyramids in Egypt.

Four bystanders were also hurt in the blast, which targeted a security checkpoint in the country’s capital Cairo on Friday.

It is the deadliest attack on security forces in several months although no group has yet claimed responsibility for the explosion.

The bomb went off in Al Haram street – the main avenue leading from the city centre to the Giza pyramids.

Reports from the scene suggest the bombing appeared to have targeted two police cars parked on the road.

It is the latest in a series of attacks in the country since the former elected Islamist president was overthrown in 2013.

Hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed in an Islamist insurgency led by Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula.

On Tuesday security forces killed three gunmen in a raid on a suspected Muslim Brotherhood hideout in southern Egypt after the group claimed responsibility in September for an assassination attempt of a senior prosecutor. </s> CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces were hit by two roadside bombings in a single day on Friday that killed six policemen and wounded six in Cairo and the north of the country, security sources and officials said.

The attacks come as the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi faces an insurgency waged by Islamist groups.

In the first incident, on Friday morning, a recently emerged Egyptian militant group claimed responsibility for a bomb in Cairo that the interior ministry said killed six policemen and wounded three others at a checkpoint on a main road leading to the Pyramids.

The Hasm Movement, which has claimed several attacks in Egypt in recent months, said it set off the bomb which, security sources said, also injured four civilians.

Eyewitness Ahmed Al-Deeb described a scene of carnage, with dead and dying policemen lying next to wrecked cars. One of the policemen had blast fragments in his chest and two more had lost legs, he told Reuters Television.

The second attack came on Friday evening in the Kafr El Sheikh governorate in the Nile Delta, where a roadside bomb killed a civilian and injured three policemen, security sources said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The bomb was detonated remotely as a police car drove by, but it exploded seconds after the vehicle passed, sparing the lives of the officers, the sources said.

SINAI INSURGENCY

The government is taking on militants in the Sinai Peninsula, where militants loyal to Islamic State are based, and Islamist groups elsewhere in the country.

Security forces killed three gunmen on Tuesday in a raid on a hideout in southern Egypt they said was used by Hasm, which they described as an armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood says it is a peaceful organization.

Hasm, the Arabic word for decisiveness, has accused judges of sentencing thousands of innocent people to death, or jailing them for life, at the behest of the military.

Egyptian judges have issued death sentences against hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters since 2013, when President Mohamed Mursi, a member of the group, was overthrown by the army and arrested.

The Brotherhood, which won Egypt’s first free elections after the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30 years in power, has since been banned and its leaders and members have largely been imprisoned or driven into exile or underground.

Slideshow (14 Images)

Since the crackdown, other small groups, including Hasm, have emerged. Hasm claimed responsibility in September for an assassination attempt on a senior prosecutor.

Militants loyal to Islamic State based in the Sinai have killed hundreds of soldiers and police.

Judges, policemen and senior officials have been targeted by radical Islamists angered by long prison sentences imposed on members of the Brotherhood. </s> CAIRO (AP) — A bombing on a main Cairo road leading to the Giza pyramids killed six police and wounded another three today, the deadliest attack on security forces in the capital in more than six months.

The bombing, near a mosque on a wide avenue often used by tour buses, hit a police checkpoint, smashing several cars and blowing the windows out of police SUVs. Gravel, debris, and leaves littered the ground, as investigators inspected the area and masked troops stood guard with automatic weapons.

"We heard the blast and rushed to the scene and found police vehicles damaged," said Abdel Hamid Abdulla, who was nearby. "We saw some police were injured, and some of their legs had been cut off," he said.

State-run news agency MENA said the blast targeted security forces but did not elaborate on what caused the explosion. A security official said that two bombs placed in the area exploded during a security patrol. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists.

A shadowy group called Hasm, or "Decisiveness," which the government suspects is linked to the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, claimed responsibility for the attack. It has claimed previous attacks in Cairo, including a shooting against the country's former chief Muslim theologian and a car bomb against the chief prosecutor's deputy. Both escaped unhurt. </s> At least eight members of security forces killed in an attack on a police checkpoint in El-Arish.

A truck bomb attack on a checkpoint in the city of El-Arish in Egypt's northern Sinai has killed at least eight policemen, security officials and medical sources said.

Police officials said a suicide bomber rammed the truck packed with explosives into the checkpoint and gunmen then opened fire on the security post on Monday.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the truck bombing.

But an armed movement in the rugged and thinly populated Sinai Peninsula has gained pace since the military toppled President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, in mid-2013 following mass protests against his rule.

Since then, hundreds of police officers and soldiers have been killed by armed groups.

In November, a car bomb attack on a checkpoint in Sinai killed eight soldiers.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group's Egyptian branch in the Sinai Peninsula has also carried out several such attacks over the past two years. </s> CAIRO - Egypt has raised the death toll from the previous night’s attack in a restive northern part of Sinai, saying seven policemen were killed, including an officer.

A local affiliate of the Islamic State group on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Interior Ministry says an officer was among the seven killed.

Previously, security officials said the militants attacked three police checkpoints in the coastal city of al-Arish late on Tuesday.

They also said eight policemen were wounded and that four militants were killed, including a suicide bomber after his explosives were set off. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. </s> At least eight members of security forces killed in an attack on a police checkpoint in El-Arish.

A truck bomb attack on a checkpoint in the city of El-Arish in Egypt's northern Sinai has killed at least seven policemen and one civilian, security officials and medical sources said.

Police officials said a suicide bomber rammed the truck packed with explosives into the El-Matafe checkpoint and gunmen then opened fire on the security post on Monday.

Egypt's interior ministry said in a statement that security forces were able to "fight off" the attack, killing five assailants and wounding three others.

Six policemen and six civilians were also wounded in the attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the truck bombing but an armed movement in the rugged and thinly populated Sinai Peninsula has gained pace since the military toppled President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, in mid-2013 following mass protests against his rule.

Since then, hundreds of police officers and soldiers have been killed by armed groups.

In November, a car bomb attack on a checkpoint in Sinai killed eight soldiers.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group's Egyptian branch in the Sinai Peninsula has also carried out several such attacks over the past two years. </s> A suspected bomber and two policemen were killed when an explosive device went off in Cairo as security forces were chasing a suspect, the Interior Ministry said late Monday.

Two policemen were also injured in the blast that took place in al-Darb al-Ahmar neighborhood, near the tourist Old Cairo area.

The terror attack took place behind the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, sources added.
Six policemen are killed in a bomb explosion at a checkpoint in Cairo, Egypt. The Hasm Movement claims responsibility for the attack.