Egypt’s interior ministry said a gunman shot dead a police officer in north Sinai in an attack claimed on Monday by the Takfiri ISIL group.

Egypt's interior ministry said a gunman shot dead a police officer in north Sinai in an attack claimed on Monday by the Takfiri ISIL group.

The gunman shot the police major in El-Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai, on Sunday night, the ministry said in a statement.

The Takfiri group's Egypt affiliate has been waging an insurgency in the peninsula that has killed hundreds of policeman and soldiers.

The group said in a statement circulated on social media that its milittants "assassinated" the major and made off with his car and automatic rifle.

The terrorists have kept up the attacks in Sinai, mostly roadside bombings and ambushes, despite a massive military campaign to uproot ISIL from the eastern peninsula bordering the Palestinian occupied territories and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

Most of the group's attacks have targeted security forces, but it has also attacked Egyptian Christians and tourists.

The group claimed responsibility for bombing a Russian airliner carrying holiday makers from an Egyptian resort last year, killing all 224 people on board.