Police colonel killed in bomb attack in Sinai

A North Sinai police colonel was killed Wednesday night in a bomb attack on a security checkpoint in North Sinai, Egypt’s interior ministry announced. Colonel Yasser El-Hadidi was killed when a bomb exploded near his patrol in El-Arish, in the vicinity of the city’s third police station, the ministry said on its official Facebook page.Three other policemen were also injured in the attack. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes only a few days after the army said security forces arrested 12 “extremely dangerous” leaders of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis in central Sinai. Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, the main Islamist group battling the Egyptian state in North Sinai, has changed its name from “Sinai Province” to the “Islamic State in Egypt”.