6 police wounded in Egypt's Sinai attacks

At least six Egyptian police conscripts were wounded on Wednesday in anti-government attacks in the restive North Sinai province bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, official MENA news agency reported.

An improvised explosive device targeted a police armored vehicle during its patrol in Arish city, leaving five conscripts variously wounded, while an armed attack on a checkpoint also in Arish injured a conscript.

"The latest armed attack on a checkpoint at Al-Masa'eed area in Arish left a conscript wounded by a shot in the chest and he was taken to nearby Arish hospital," medics and witnesses told Xinhua.

The attacks came one day after the Islamic State (IS) militant group claimed responsibility for Sunday's church blast in Cairo that killed at least 25 Coptic Christian worshippers.

Most of anti-government terrorist attacks that took place over the past three years were claimed by the "Sinai State," a Sinai-based group affiliated with the IS.

On Monday, a blast killed two military conscripts and injured three others in Sheikh Zuweid city of North Sinai. On Friday, a bomb attack killed six policemen in Giza province near the capital city of Cairo.

Terror attacks have been growing in Egypt since the military removed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.

Later security crackdown on Morsi's supporters left about 1,000 of them dead and thousands more arrested, while terrorist attacks killed several hundreds of police and military men.

A security campaign in Sinai killed over 1,200 militants and arrested a similar number of suspects over the past couple of years as part of the country's "anti-terror war," declared by general-turned President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi following Morsi's ouster. Endit