Egyptian army kills senior IS affiliate leader

The Egyptian army on Sunday said it killed a leader in the Islamic State group’s Egyptian affiliate in an airstrike last month.

"Following the results of the air raid on March 18... and upon the security apparatus's investigation, it was revealed that Salem Salmy al-Hamadeen, Aka Abu Anas al-Ansari, was killed," the military spokesman said in a statement.

Hamadeen was one of the founders of the group which was formerly called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, now called Wilayat Sinai, and was responsible for arming and training militants.

The extremist leader died after being wounded in the air raid, the statement said.

Since the ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in a 2013 military coup, led by then defence minister and current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, North Sinai has been caught in the crossfire between the army and local armed militants.

The majority of the Islamist militant attacks, in which hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed, were carried out by Wilayat Sinai, which has officially pledged allegiance to IS. A state of emergency has since been in place in some parts of North Sinai.

The group has recently attacked Coptic Christians in North Sinai forcing hundreds of Copts to flee the North Sinai city of al-Arish to escape the latest spate of targeting Christians.

The latest in a string of sectarian attacks came after the group released a video threatening further attacks on Egypt's Christian minority.

In the video, the group also claimed responsibility for last December's bomb explosion in a chapel beside Cairo's Coptic cathedral that left more than 25 dead and dozens injured.