Egypt: Car bomb kills 7 civilians in North Sinai

Egyptian army on Tuesday confirmed that seven civilians, including two young children, were killed by a car bomb that exploded at a security checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula on Monday.

The military said it intercepted the vehicle at a checkpoint near the city of Arish, the capital of North Sinai province, and tried to contain the expected blast by running over the car with a tank. The bomb however exploded after the tank had driven away, according to images seen in a video released by the army, according to the AP news agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

An insurgency in Egypt’s Sinai region has gained pace since the army toppled President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement, following mass protests against his rule in mid-2013.

*FEATURED IMAGE CAPTION:* Egyptian relatives and friends carry the coffin of the officer Khaled al-Maghrabi, who was killed during a suicide bomb attack on an army checkpoint in Sinai, during his funeral in his hometown Toukh, Al Qalyubia Governorate, north of Cairo, Egypt 8 July, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany