Four soldiers, two civilians killed in Egypt Sinai attacks: Army

CAIRO - An Egyptian woman and child were killed in a car bomb, and four soldiers died in a separate explosion Friday in the northern Sinai Peninsula, where the military is engaged in a sweeping campaign against militants, the army said.

The army said the woman and child were killed in a car bomb in Rafah, on the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

The four soldiers were killed in a bomb attack during clashes with rebels, also in northern Sinai, a spokesman said in a statement, without giving further details. 

Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram reported that the incident took place amid a major military operation in the area.

On Monday, the military launched a vast offensive against fighters from the Sinai Province group affiliated to the Islamic State (IS), which has seized control of swathes of Iraq and Syria.

The army said 232 rebels had been killed in the operation. It was not possible independently to verify the claim.

The Egyptian military claims to have killed more than 1,000 rebels since 2013, but these figures are difficult to independently verify.

The army is struggling to contain an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since 2013, when the army removed democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi from power in a coup.

On Thursday, the United States announced that it would be sending 75 extra troops to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to increase the safety of US peacekeeping forces there following a roadside bomb attack last week.

The bombing injured six international peacekeepers, including four Americans, who are in the region as part of a force that monitors a 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.