IS affiliate claims responsibility for attack in Egypt's Sinai

An Islamic State (IS) affiliate group in Egypt has claimed responsibility for the attack on a checkpoint on Friday in North Sinai province that killed 12 soldiers and wounded six.

"A number of our soldiers have launched an attack on a checkpoint belonging to the Egyptian army south of Bir al-Abd," the IS group said late Friday in a statement published on some Islamic websites.

It added its soldiers were safe and sound and had seized arms and ammunitions during the attack on the military checkpoint.

The armed forces said in a statement on Friday "an armed group of terrorist elements attacked a security checkpoint in North Sinai on Friday morning using four-wheel drives and were immediately engaged. Our forces killed 15 terrorists and wounded others."

This is the first major attack in the central Sinai area as Bir al-Abd has yet been so far from the reach of the violence that has threatened northern Sinai over the past three years.

The jihadist group, formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, has pledged allegiance to Islamic State since 2014 and changed its name to "Sinai State."

It claimed the responsibility for most of the anti-security attacks that rocked North Sinai and killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen, in retaliation of killing and arresting of thousands of the former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's loyals.

Intensified Egyptian military raids killed and arrested several hundreds of IS-affiliate extremists in Sinai Peninsula as part of the country's "anti-terrorism war" declared following Morsi's ouster in 2013.

On Saturday, the armed forces have raided a stronghold of Jihadists, killing two terrorists.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a statement posted on his Facebook page, said this attack will give the Egyptians more strength to continue the battle for existence and construction, and will only make the Egyptians more resilient to go on with the anti-terror battle. Endit