In both attacks, militants set up roadblocks and stopped vehicles with troops or policemen, the officials said.

Attacks in Egypt’s Sinai killed two policemen and three soldiers, officials said, according to the Associated Press.

Two attacks by Islamic militants in restive northern Sinai left five policemen and soldiers dead, officials said, according to the Associated Press.

In both attacks, militants set up roadblocks and stopped vehicles with troops or policemen, the officials said.

In one attack, near town of Sheikh Zuweyid, militants dragged three soldiers out of their car and killed them. In the other attack, two policemen were snatched from their vehicle near the border town of Rafah and shot to death.

The officials say victims in both attacks were off duty and in civilian clothes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Northern Sinai has been under the state of emergency since a militant attack on an army checkpoint last month killed 31 soldiers there.

Metro incident

The attack followed a bomb explosion in a Cairo metro carriage that wounded at least seven people.

Egypt has been hit by a wave of attacks, many of them claimed by Sinai-based militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which on Monday pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Last week, a bomb on a train north of the capital killed four people, including two policemen, while blasts in the Cairo metro and near a presidential palace wounded several others.

 
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