Sinai bombing kills two Egypt police

Two Egyptian policemen were killed in a roadside bombing in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, the interior ministry said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

The ministry said 16 policemen were also wounded when the bomb hit their convoy in the north of the peninsula, where security forces are struggling to quell an Islamist insurgency.

The Islamic State’s Egypt affiliate said on Twitter that its militants had detonated the bomb as police tried to set up a checkpoint.

Militants loyal to the Islamic State group, which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria, have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Morsi’s overthrow unleashed a sweeping crackdown on Islamists that left hundreds of protesters dead and thousands in prison.