Egyptian father beheaded, teenage son shot dead in Sinai

An Egyptian man has been beheaded and his teenage son shot dead in the Sinai peninsula, where Islamic State group (IS) militants are spearheading an insurgency.

The man and his 17-year-old son were killed late Monday in the North Sinai provincial town of al-Arish, security officials and medics said on Tuesday.

No militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

In the past, jihadists from the Egyptian affiliate of IS have beheaded several people and posted gruesome pictures online after accusing them of spying for the army in the Sinai.

"The man's decapitated body and his son's body were brought to hospital on Monday night. His son was shot in the head," a medic said.

The killings come weeks after Egypt's IS affiliate posted pictures online of two men it said were killed for spying for the military in the Sinai.

The IS affiliate - "Sinai Province" - is waging an insurgency in the restive peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

The group also claimed the 31 October downing of a Russian airliner carrying tourists over Sinai that killed all 224 people on board.

IS said it had smuggled a bomb onto the plane at an airport in the south of the peninsula.

The crash dealt a major blow to tourism, prompting Russia to cancel all flights to Egypt and Britain to suspend flights to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, from where the Russian aircraft had taken off.

The Sinai militants pledged allegiance in November 2014 to IS, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria and also has a presence in conflict-ridden Libya.