The Islamic State extremist group’s local affiliate in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula killed three civilians near the city of Sheikh Zuwayed in the northeast of the peninsula on Saturday morning, accusing them of cooperating with Egyptian security forces.

Egypt’s Interior Ministry on Tuesday announced that Egyptian police forces killed two wanted militants in a shootout in North Sinai’s Gilbana area.

Egypt executed on Saturday Libyan militant Abdel Rahim Al-Mismari, who was convicted for an attack south of Cairo in October 2017 that killed 16 policemen, the defence ministry said.

The Cairo Criminal Court yesterday sentenced 13 defendants to life imprisonment, and three others to 15-year terms on charges of joining Al-Nusra Front and participating in its operations.

With the assistance of a large number of local tribal members fighting alongside the Egyptian army, Egyptian authorities have expanded their coordination with the tribes when confronting armed organizations in the Sinai Peninsula.

An elder of the Tarabin tribe — one of North Sinai’s largest tribes — was brutally executed on Saturday by the Province of Sinai, the Islamic State affiliate in the peninsula.

A number of Egyptian soldiers were killed and injured on Wednesday morning in attacks close to the border city of Rafah by a militants from a local Islamic State group affiliate.

The Egyptian military says it has killed at least 19 fighters during security operations in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, which also resulted in five casualties among troops.

Egypt’s military said on Friday that seven suspected militants were killed in a raid carried out as part of its operations against insurgents in the restive Sinai Peninsula.

The United States is reportedly planning to withdraw troops from Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula, where Washington heads an international peacekeeping force and Cairo is battling the local chapter of the Islamic State (IS) group.