Unidentified gunmen killed at least five Egyptian soldiers and policemen on Thursday in two separate gun attacks in northern Sinai, an area under emergency rule due to militant violence, security and medical sources said.
Three soldiers on leave were traveling in a taxi near Sheik Zuweid when they were ambushed and shot dead, the sources said. In a separate incident in Rafah, bordering the Gaza Strip, gunmen stopped a car carrying two police conscripts and killed them.
Militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and police, mostly in Sinai since the army toppled Egypt's first freely-elected civilian President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 after protests against his troubled one-year rule. The army declared a three-month state of emergency in the area last month after 33 security personnel were killed in two attacks.