IS kills two police in Egypt’s Sinai

Gunmen killed two Egyptian policemen Wednesday in the Sinai Peninsula, the interior ministry said, in an attack claimed by Islamic State group jihadists.

Egypt’s security forces have come under regular attack since the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi two years ago.

In Wednesday’s attack in El-Arish, the capital of North Sinai province, “unidentified assailants on a motorbike opened fire on two police, who died of their wounds,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

The attackers managed to escape, according to security officials.

The Egyptian affiliate of IS, which calls itself Sinai Province, said it was responsible and posted photographs of the purported attack and its aftermath online.

The government says hundreds of police and soldiers have been killed in attacks in the past two years, many of which were claimed by IS’s Egyptian affiliate.

The jihadists say their attacks are in response to a crackdown launched by the authorities after Morsi’s ouster that has seen at least 1,400 people killed and thousands more jailed.