An attack by militants on a police convoy near Arish city in North Sinai on Monday has killed a number of policemen, the interior ministry has said, while anonymous sources told Al-Ahram Arabic s local correspondent, Hanaa El-Tabarani, that the number of dead has reached 18, with five injured.
According to anonymous security sources quoted by Al-Ahram, militants remotely detonated an IED that destroyed three armoured security vehicles and a vehicle jamming system in a convoy 17km away from Arish.
Militants also attacked the convoy by driving into it with a car primed to explode, Al-Ahram reported.
The sources added that the ambulances could not reach the injured as militants were ambushing security and medical support.
In a subsequent update on Monday afternoon, Al-Ahram reported that the injured were being evacuated.
The interior ministry has released a short statement saying that "a number of police were killed" in a the convoy attack.
So far no militant group has claimed responsibility of the attack, although many similar attacks have been claimed by Sinai-based Islamist militant group Ansar Beit El-Maqdis.
Islamist militants have killed hundreds of security personnel in similar attacks in North Sinai in the past four years.
