Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Three Islamist militant attacks in North Sinai on Sunday killed at least 13 most of who were security officers.

In one attack, a roadside bomb killed six Egyptian soldiers including two officers in the North Sinai on April 12.

A tweet by Sinai Province, an Islamist group that took an oath of loyalty to Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility. The group was formerly known as Ansar Beit Maqdis.

A statement by the Egyptian Army reported the attack on an armored military vehicle by “terrorist and extremist elements” in Sheik Zuweid.

[Related: Ansar, backed by ISIL, goes on rampage in northern Sinai, Jan. 30]

Since Gen. Abdul Fatah Sisi ousted the elected Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Islamists tied to Al Qaida and ISIL have killed hundreds of security officials in North Sinai.

A second attack later on Sunday killed at least seven including five police officers and wounded 44 in al-Arish, the capital of the North Sinai region, according to the Interior Ministry’s Facebook page.

The car bomb attack took near a police station.

Later on Sunday, a car bomb targeting a police station in the city of al-Arish, the capital of the North Sinai governorate, killed at least seven people and wounded 44 others, medical sources said, adding that both civilians and members of the security services were among the casualties.

The Interior Ministry said five police officers and one civilian were killed in the explosion, which it described on its official Facebook page as a suicide attack.

Siniai Province also claimed responsibility for the attack. In a third attack, militants launched a firefight with soldiers near Rafah on Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip. At least three soldiers were wounded.

  Egypt, Group loyal to ISIL claims credit for bloody series of Sinai attacks Sunday, Morsi, Sisi, WorldTribune.com