Second terror attack in as many weeks rattles northern Sinai

Incident comes on heels of deadly attack that killed 33 soldiers in the peninsula.

An Egyptian soldier keeps guard during a military operation near the border with the southern Gaza Strip October 30 (photo credit: REUTERS)
An Egyptian soldier keeps guard during a military operation near the border with the southern Gaza Strip October 30
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Seven Egyptian security personnel were injured on Friday, after a blast sent ripples across a northern city in Sinai, Egypt's Al-Ahram reported.
Two officers and five soldiers were wounded when their armored vehicle drove over a roadside bomb, planted near El-Arish. The men were transferred to a local hospital following the attack.
The incident comes on the heels of two deadly terror attacks which left 33 Egyptian soldiers dead on October 24.
Egypt has declared a three-month state of emergency in the northern peninsula, which has seen an uptick in violence since the removal of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi last year.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's military began evacuating homes near Gaza in a bid to instate a buffer zone along its shared border with the Strip, since Egypt holds Gaza-linked terrorists largely responsible for the recent terror plots.
Egyptian officials believe the terrorists, who have yet to be identified, have ties with radical groups operating in the coastal enclave and sees the new, 10-kilometer-long buffer as a way to curb smuggling across the underground tunnels that connect the two territories.