Egypt says three high-level militants killed in Sinai

Seventy-four others have been arrested in recent sweeps, the army said on Thursday

Egypt's armed forces say they have killed three "high-level" suspected militants and arrested 74 others in sweeps of the northern Sinai Peninsula.

Military spokesman Colonel Tamer El Rifai said on Thursday that five four-wheel-drive vehicles and four bomb-making workshops were destroyed in the raids, as well as ammunition and fuel stocks.

Security forces have been battling militants in Northern Sinai for years in an insurgency that picked up after an elected but divisive Islamist president was deposed by the military in 2013.

Egypt is also facing a growing number of attacks by militants in its Western Desert.

Hundreds of security forces and militants have been killed in the Sinai over the years, although exact numbers are unclear as journalists and independent investigators are banned from the area.

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