Egypt policeman killed, two wounded in Sinai attacks

An Egyptian policeman was shot dead and two colleagues were wounded in attacks in the restive Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, security officials said, a day after a bomb killed 11 policemen.

Assailants in a car gunned down a police sergeant in the North Sinai town of El-Arish, the officials said.

Two policemen were wounded later in a roadside bombing that targeted their armored vehicle near the town, officials added.

The attacks came a day after the deadliest ambush of policemen in months, when a roadside bomb that exploded near an armored police vehicle killed an officer and 10 conscripts.

Militants in Sinai have killed scores of policemen and soldiers in a string of attacks since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammed Mursi in July 2013.

The attacks had decreased over the past months amid a massive military operation that killed dozens of suspected militants.

The main Sinai militant group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, had also conducted deadly bombings of police installations in the capital and the Nile Delta, and tried to assassinate the interior minister in a September 2013 suicide bombing.

The militants, who want to implement Islamic law, say their attacks are retaliation for the police killings of hundreds of pro-Mursi protesters in street clashes after his ouster.