Two Egyptian army officers killed in shootout with militants -...

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Two Egyptian army officers were killed on Wednesday in a shootout with members of a Sinai-based Islamist militant group, the Interior Ministry said.

It said five militants were killed and four arrested when the military and police raided a bomb and weapons storage facility, and said the fighters belonged to Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, one of the country's most active militant organizations.

Security sources said an exchange of gunfire erupted after an army colonel and brigadier general took part in a raid on a militant safehouse where the men were hiding in Qalubiya province, north of Cairo. They said the two officers were bomb disposal experts.

Islamist militants based in the Sinai peninsula near Israel's border have stepped up attacks on security forces since the army chief toppled President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last July. About 300 security officers have been killed.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for several high-profile attacks, including the bombing of a tourist bus in the Sinai last month that killed two South Koreans and an Egyptian, and an assassination attempt on the interior minister last year. Ansar also said it was behind a missile attack on a military helicopter that killed five soldiers in January.

Security sources said the militants targeted on Wednesday were linked to a March 15 attack by gunmen who killed six army officers near Cairo.

The Islamist insurgency has spread from the Sinai to other parts of the Arab world's biggest nation, including Cairo, and analysts believe attacks on security forces will increase in the coming months when a presidential election is due to take place and is widely expected to be won by army chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Security forces have killed hundreds of members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and arrested thousands since he was ousted by Sisi.

Egypt's army, the largest in the Arab world, has launched several offensives against militants in the Sinai, but Islamist fighters who have mastered the terrain remain highly effective, residents say.

In the 1990s, it took the government of former president Hosni Mubarak years to stamp out an Islamist insurgency.

REUTERS