The Egyptian government has intensified its offensive against militant and terrorist sects in the region.
The Egyptian army
Egyptian security forces shot dead 24 militants belonging to the country's Islamic State affiliate in central Sinai, 70 kilometres from the crash site of a Russian passenger plane the group claimed it brought down.
According to Reuters, Security sources said they killed the militants as they hid in a mountainous cave and that they arrested eight of them.
Sinai Province, Islamic State's Egypt branch, is active in North Sinai where two years ago it launched an insurgency and has since killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen.
The group is rarely active outside that area.