“A security cell of Caliphate soldiers managed to attack an Egyptian police roadblock (…) with submachine guns,” said the propaganda outlet Amaq.
The attack, the first of its kind outside Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in almost three years, claimed the lives of three police officers, according to medical and security sources.
However, in its propaganda, IS has claimed responsibility for several attacks outside of Sinai, which have not been confirmed by Egyptian sources.
An attacker on the run
Two gunmen got out of two cars approaching a checkpoint set up in a residential area of Ismailiya (northeast) on Friday and fired at police with automatic weapons.
Other police officers responded by opening fire, killing one of the attackers and wounding the other, who nevertheless managed to escape, according to the same sources.
Four police officers were also injured.
Large-scale “anti-terrorist” operation
In recent years, attacks on security forces and state officials have been concentrated in the Sinai Peninsula (east), where a jihadist insurgency is now losing momentum.
The Egyptian army and police launched a major “anti-terrorist operation” in Sinai in February 2018, where radical cells, some of whom have sworn allegiance to ISIS, are rampaging.
They are also fighting radical insurgents in the western desert, between the Nile Valley and the border with Libya.
According to official figures, more than a thousand jihadists and dozens of members of the security forces have been killed – but there is no independent report and North Sinai is closed to journalists.
The Suez Canal, through which about 10% of the world’s maritime trade flows, is one of Egypt’s most important sources of foreign exchange. In other parts of the country there have been attacks in Cairo in recent years.