• As Somali soldiers, al-Shabaab clashes leaves 17 dead

At least 18 policemen have been killed in an attack on a convoy in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula claimed by so-called Islamic State, security sources say.

Militants detonated a roadside bomb near the town of el-Arish, reportedly destroying three armoured vehicles and a fourth with signal-jamming equipment.

They then opened fire with machine guns at survivors of the blast.

The interior ministry confirmed there had been an attack and that several policemen had been killed or injured.

Hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed by militants affiliated to IS since 2013, when the Egyptian military overthrew Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

The jihadists have also killed dozens of people in attacks targeting Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority elsewhere in the country, and claimed it planted the bomb that brought down a plane carrying tourists in Sinai in 2015, killing 224 people on board.

In Monday’s attack, the police convoy was travelling along the road between el-Arish and Qantara when a suspect vehicle tried to break through it, according to an interior ministry statement.

“When police forces dealt with the vehicle, it exploded and caused damages to the patrol’s vehicles,” it added. “This was followed by a shootout between the police officers and the terrorists, resulting in the death and injury of several policemen.”

It did not provide any casualty figures, but the attack appears to have been the deadliest on security forces in Sinai since July, when at least 23 soldiers were killed in a suicide car bombing that targeted a checkpoint near the Gaza border.

IS claimed it was behind the attack via its news agency Amaq.

It comes a day after the interior ministry said security forces had killed 10 suspected militants in a shootout during a raid on two apartments in Cairo.

Investigators had received information about militants travelling from northern Sinai to the capital to prepare for attacks on neighbouring provinces, it added.

In the meantime, clashes between militant group al-Shabaab and Somali forces near the Kenyan border left at least 17 people dead on Monday.

The al-Qaeda-linked group launched a suicide bomb attack on a Somali army post in Beled Hawo, and then briefly took control of the town, according to Siyad Abdi-Kalil, a regional commander.

“The terrorist elements attacked our army post outside Beled Hawo with a suicide car bombing and then heavily armed militants moved in and took several parts of the town during Morning Prayer at dawn,”Abdi-Kalil said.

He said the Somali army pushed back, killing 10 militants with the support of Kenyan troops, who form part of an AU mission to the volatile East African country.

Seven Somali soldiers were also killed in the fighting, he said.

A senior Somali government official, who asked not to be named said casualties on both sides could rise.

On the militants’ radio station, al-Shabaab claimed to have killed more than 20 Somali troops.

Residents said dozens of civilians fleeing the fighting had briefly crossed into the nearby town of Mandera in Kenya.
Al-Shabaab is seeking to establish an Islamist state in Somalia and is affiliated with the international al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Kenya has about 3,700 troops fighting al-Shabaab as part of an AU mission to its neighbour.

Additional report  from BBC