Roadside bomb kills policeman, soldier in Egypt

A police officer and a soldier were killed by a roadside bomb in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula today, security sources said.

The bomb was detonated remotely when the victims’ armoured vehicle passed by during a security operation, the sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but an insurgency in the Sinai has gained pace since the military toppled President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013, orchestrated by current President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi, then defence minister.

Morsi was Egypt’s first and only democratically elected leader before he was toppled by the Sisi regime.

The militant group staging the insurgency in the Sinai pledged allegiance to the Daesh militant group in 2014 and adopted the name “Sinai Province”, suggesting that it is a province of the larger self-styled Daesh caliphate. It is blamed for killing hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police since then.