Gunmen shot dead an Egyptian policeman in the restive Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday, security officials said, a day after 11 policemen were killed in a roadside bombing.

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

The shooting came a day after the deadliest attack on policemen in months, when a roadside bomb that exploded near an armoured 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 Mohamed Morsi 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 using a suicide bomber in September 2013.

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

AFP