Cairo: Egyptian security forces killed three suspected militants and arrested 74 others in raids targeting militant groups in north Sinai in recent days, the military said in a statement on Thursday.

Egypt faces an Islamist insurgency led by Daesh in the Sinai Peninsula, where hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed since 2013.

The military did not name a specific militant group or release the names of those killed, but said the militants were “highly dangerous”.

As part of their raids security forces destroyed five four-wheel drive vehicles and four storage sites used to manufacture improvised explosive devices, the military statement said.

Last week, militants affiliated with Daesh ambushed a convoy of cement trucks from an army factory in the central Sinai Peninsula, killing eight civilian employees and two soldiers.

Lt Col Ebrahim Hussain Mohammad was killed in the night-time attack near the town of Nakhl, the officials added.

The militants, from the group formerly known as Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, stole the men’s weapons and burnt seven trucks.

Security forces have been battling militants in northern Sinai for years in an insurgency that picked up after the 2013 military ouster of an elected, but divisive, Islamist president.

Egypt is also facing a growing number of attacks by militants in its Western Desert, the latest of which killed 16 policemen according to an official tally issued by the interior ministry.

Security officials, however, have told journalists that dozens more, including high-ranking counterterrorism officers, perished in the October 20 attack around 135km southwest of the capital, Cairo.

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi says Daesh militants are making their way to his country via Libya after the defeat of the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.

The regional turmoil has forced Egypt to build up its military in recent years according to the general-turned-president, who has spent more than $10 billion since 2014 on a wide array of weaponry, including French-made Rafale fighter jets and helicopter carriers, MiG-29 fighter jets and assault helicopters from Russia, and submarines from Germany.

Most of the attacks in Sinai take place in a contested northeastern corner of the peninsula near the Gaza Strip. But army and police raids deeper into the area’s central mountains have sparked violence and militant attacks further south.