Car bomb kills 6 in Sinai, ISIS in Egypt claims responsibility

Ten others wounded in blast allegedly targeting police in northern Sinai city of El Arish.

By REUTERS
Updated: NOVEMBER 4, 2015 09:45
Egyptian ambulances [File] (photo credit: REUTERS)
Egyptian ambulances [File]
(photo credit: REUTERS)
ISMAILIA - A car bomb targeting a policeman's club in the Egyptian city of El Arish killed six people and wounded 10 on Wednesday, security sources said.
Islamic State's Egypt affiliate, Sinai Province, claimed responsibility for the attack, which it described as a suicide bombing.
The group has killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said Islamist militants pose a grave threat to Egypt, the most populous Arab country.
On Saturday, a Russian jet, carrying 224 passengers, most of them holidaymakers flying back to St. Petersburg from the Sinai Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, crashed into a mountainous area of Egypt's Sinai peninsula shortly after losing radar contact near cruising altitude, killing all aboard.
A Sinai-based Egyptian militant group allied to Islamic State claimed to have shot down the plane in response to Russia's military intervention in Syria in support of President Bashar Assad against rebels including Islamic State.
However, the ISIS-linked group is not believed to have missiles capable of hitting a plane at 30,000 feet. A source in the committee analyzing the flight recorders told Reuters on Monday that the plane had not been struck from the outside.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was inappropriate to link the crash to Russia's military strategy in Syria.
The crash left wreckage strewn over more than 3 km (2 miles) of desert.
Once investigations at the site were completed, the investigators will focus on analyzing the contents of the black box flight recorders, Egypt's civil aviation ministry said.