ISIL attacked Egyptian police

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - ISIL announced on Saturday that it carried out a deadly attack on an Egyptian police checkpoint in Ismailia on the Suez Canal the previous day.

"A cell of the caliphate's soldiers managed to attack an Egyptian police barricade... with a machine gun," announced the Amaq news agency, which is associated with this terrorist group.

Three Egyptian police officers were killed in the attack, the first of its kind in nearly three years in continental Egypt, which has largely been spared the clashes on the nearby Sinai Peninsula, AFP reminds.

In recent years, attacks on Egyptian security forces have been concentrated in Sinai, where ISIL-affiliated terrorists operate.

Eleven soldiers were killed on May 7 in an attack in western Sinai. A few days later, five more soldiers and seven terrorists were killed when the army was attacked on the peninsula.

Ismailia is one of the key cities overlooking Egypt's Suez Canal, a vital waterway between Asia and Europe through which about 10 percent of global maritime trade passes.