A roadside bomb blast wounded 20 Egyptian policemen on July 9, 2015.
A roadside bomb blast wounded 20 Egyptian policemen today as they travelled in a bus in northern Sinai where militants have launched deadly attacks against security forces, officials said.
The military is fighting an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai, which grew since the 2013 ouster of president Mohamed Morsi by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Today's attack on the outskirts of North Sinai's provincial capital of El-Arish targeted a bus carrying policemen who were on leave, medics and security officials said.
The bomb was detonated by remote control, security officials said.
The 20 policemen and a civilian were wounded in the blast, health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said, adding that three of the wounded were in serious condition.
In a separate incident on today morning, gunmen on a motorbike shot dead a police captain near his home in the Nile Delta town of Beni Sueif, south of Cairo, police said.
North Sinai is a bastion of a jihadist group calling itself 'Sinai Province'. Formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, it changed its name when it pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in November.