Unidentified gunmen shot a civilian dead in North Sinai late on Monday, Egypt's official news agency MENA reported, where the military is battling an Islamist insurgency. The 45-year-old man was killed in the town of Sheikh Zuweid, the scene of many ambushes and shooting s of security forces over the past few years. MENA had reported less than an hour earlier that a civilian and five security personnel were wounded when a roadside bomb targeting a passing security vehicle in the provincial capital of Al-Arish went off. It said the bomb was planted by unknown assailants. Extremists have been waging an insurgency in North Sinai that has mainly targeted policeman and soldiers in bombings and shootings. The military have spearheaded an extensive campaign to crush militants in the region that borders Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of extremists. Earlier this week, four civilians were killed also in Al-Arish after an improvised bomb planted in a garbage bag detonated near a police station. The army said it had killed 88 extremists in the third phase of its 'Right of the Martyr' campaign in May, and that another 22 were killed in a multi-day operation early in June. In early August, the army said that it had killed the leader of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, Abu Doaa Al-Ansari, and a number of his associates in air strikes against the group's strongholds south and south-west of Al-Arish in North Sinai.
