Egypt Police Attack: At Least 10 Police Officers Dead In Northern Sinai

At least 10 people died in a suicide attack on a security checkpoint Monday in northern Sinai, Egypt. A suicide bomber who drove a garbage truck loaded with explosives hit the vehicle into the checkpoint outside a police building in al-Arish city.

Those deceased were all policemen and the death toll is likely to go up, according to local officials. The injured people have been taken to the hospital.

The attack was carried out with a car bomb planted in the vehicles, which was stolen a few days earlier, three security sources told Reuters. Following the explosion, the attackers opened fire and launched rocket-propelled grenades at the checkpoint, the sources added. Police recovered the body of one of the attackers.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack that reportedly bore similarities to those carried out by Egypt’s Islamic State group affiliate. The group is blamed for several attacks against security forces across the troubled country.

Last November, ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a security checkpoint that claimed lives of 15 soldiers. The same month, the Sunni militant group urged, in a weekly online magazine Al-Nabaa, its sympathizers to join other branches of the group active in areas like Sinai, Libya, Yemen and West Africa if they are unable to reach ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria.