At least 4 killed in militant attacks in Egypt’s Sinai

At least four people, including one civilian, have been killed in militant attacks on a number of security checkpoints in Egypt’s northern Sinai, medics and security sources say.

Egypt’s Extra News television said on Wednesday that Egyptian forces were exchanging gunfire with the attackers, without providing any initial details on casualties.

But there were reports on social media of a number of casualties, and medics and a security source confirmed that at least three security personnel, including an officer and a civilian, had been killed.

Other security sources put the police death toll at 10, adding that four militants had also been killed.

The attacks were carried out at the start of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

No group has so far claimed responsibility.

The Sinai Peninsula has been under a state of emergency since October 2014, after a deadly terrorist attack left 33 Egyptian soldiers dead.

Over the past few years, terrorists have been carrying out anti-government activities and fatal attacks in Egypt, taking advantage of the turmoil that erupted after the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a military coup in July 2013.

The Velayat Sinai group, which is affiliated with Daesh, has claimed responsibility for most of the assaults.

Last year, the Egyptian army launched a full-scale counterterrorism campaign on an order by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, after a terror attack in North Sinai claimed the lives of more than 300 people at a mosque.

The army says 650 suspected terrorists have been killed in the operation so far.

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