Smoke rises in Egypt’s North Sinai along the border with southern Israel, yesterday after Islamic State militants launched an assault on several military checkpoints. Photo: Reuters

Islamic State insurgents attacked several military checkpoints in Egypt’s North Sinai yesterday in a co-ordinated assault that killed more than 100 people – one of the biggest militant strikes in Egypt’s modern history.

Soldiers, policemen, civilians and militants were among the dead.

Islamic State’s Egyptian affiliate, Sinai Province, claimed responsibility and said that it had attacked more than 15 security sites and carried out three suicide bombings.

Egypt’s armed forces said that at least 100 militants and 17 soldiers had been killed. One security source said about 300 militants, armed with heavy weapons and anti-aircraft weaponry, had taken part in the attacks while the army said five checkpoints were hit and the fighting had raged for more than eight hours.

The assault – a significant escalation in violence in the Sinai Peninsula that lies between Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Suez Canal – was the second high-profile attack in Egypt this week. On Monday, a bomb killed the prosecutor-general in Cairo.

The insurgents, who have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers, want to topple the Cairo government and have stepped up their campaign since 2013, when then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi removed President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood after mass protests against his rule.

Al-Sisi, who regards the Brotherhood as a threat to national security, has since overseen a harsh crackdown on Islamists. Security sources said the militants had planned to lay siege to the town of Sheikh Zuweid.

Army F-16 jets and Apache helicopters strafed the region. Soldiers had destroyed three SUVs fitted with anti-aircraft guns, the army said. Security sources said militants had surrounded a police station in Sheikh Zuweid and had planted bombs around it to prevent forces from leaving. The militants also planted bombs along a road between Sheikh Zuweid and al-Zuhour army camp to prevent the movement of any army supplies or reinforcements. They also seized two armoured vehicles, weapons and ammunition, the sources said.

Ambulance medic Yousef Abdelsalam said he was at the entrance to Sheikh Zuweid but could not enter because of warnings that the road was rigged with bombs.

Witnesses and security sources also reported hearing two explosions in the nearby town of Rafah, which borders Gaza. The sources said all roads leading to Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid were shut down. The interior ministry in the Gaza Strip, run by the Islamist Hamas group, reinforced its forces along the border with Egypt.

“It is a sharp reminder that despite the intensive counter terrorism military campaign in the Sinai over the past six months, the IS ranks are not decreasing – if anything they are increasing in numbers as well as sophistication, training and daring,” Aimen Dean, a former al-Qaeda insider who now runs a Gulf-based security consultancy, said in a note.