Egypt’s deadliest militant group said one of its founders has been accidentally killed by a bomb.

Egypt's deadliest militant group said one of its founders has been accidentally killed by a bomb.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has spearheaded a low-level insurgency against Egyptian soldiers and police, said Tawfiq Mohamed Fareej was killed last week when a car accident set off a bomb he was carrying.

The group, whose name means Partisans of Jerusalem in Arabic, has claimed some of the deadliest attacks on Egyptian security forces since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammad Mursi last July.

One of the group's founders, Fareej was the "field commander" of an August 18, 2011 cross-border raid into Israel that killed eight Israelis, the group said in a statement on Friday.

He also masterminded attacks on a gas pipeline to Israel, said the statement posted on militant Islamist Internet forums.

Fareej was involved in a failed assassination attempt against the Egyptian interior minister in September.

Interior minister Mohammad Ibrahim later identified Fareej as the "leader" of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and said he was involved in the assassination attempt as well as a deadly December bombing of police headquarters.

The interior ministry itself did not immediately comment on Fareej's reported death.

The Sinai Peninsula-based group said Fareej "oversaw the group's branch that carried out many operations against the regime of traitors and collaborators."

The group has claimed a series of high profile attacks in Sinai and elsewhere in Egypt, including bombings of police headquarters and the downing of a military helicopter with a heat-seeking missile.