A Sinai Peninsula checkpoint was attacked Friday, killing 12 Egyptian troops but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the incident.
The fighting happened 25 miles from Bir al-Abd, its first major attack in the central Sinai area that was previously unaffected by militant Islamists' attacks, according to Reuters.
Authorities said mortar rounds were fired at the army checkpoint, wounding six others.
"Terrorist elements attacked a checkpoint in the northern Sinai," an army spokesman told Agence France-Presse, adding that its forces fought with assailants during the attack. "Fifteen terrorists were killed."
"An Islamist insurgency in the rugged and thinly populated Sinai Peninsula gained pace after the Egyptian military overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest Islamist movement, in mid-2013 following mass protests against his rule," Reuters reported.
"The militant group staging the insurgency pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014 and adopted the name Sinai Province. It is blamed for the killing of hundreds of soldiers and policemen, and has started to target Western targets within Egypt," the news agency continued.
The Islamic State has also been involved in kidnappings along with the murder of local Sinai residents the terrorist group suspect of working with security forces, The Associated Press reported.
The AP stated, though, that there had been a sharp fall in the number of attacks in mainland Egypt in recent months where ISIS had claimed responsibility. The news service stated that a previously unknown group called "Hasm," or "Decisiveness," has started claiming responsibility for attacks there.
The Sinai Peninsula is a vital territory in the Middle East, lying between the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal on the west, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Negev on the east, along with Mediterranean Sea on the north, and the Red Sea to the south.
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