Militants affiliated with the ISIL Takfiri group have claimed responsibility for a deadly roadside bombing in Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula.

A local terrorist group known as Velayat Sinai (Sinai Province) said in a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday that it had planted the bomb on the road between Rafah, a town on the border with the besieged Gaza Strip, and the town of Sheikh Zuweid.

The terrorist group pledged allegiance to the ISIL Takfiri group in November 2014 and has been behind most of the attacks that have killed many Egyptian police officers, soldiers, judiciary officials, and civilians over the past months.

Egypt’s Military spokesman, Brigadier General Mohamed Samir, said earlier in the day that one officer and three soldiers were killed when their armored vehicle hit the bomb near Rafah.

The spokesman further added that at least three troops were also wounded in the Thursday bomb blast.

On July 19, the Egyptian military said in a statement that seven soldiers had lost their lives due to acts of terrorism a day before in the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt’s army has deployed troops and military hardware to the Sinai Peninsula, where security forces have been fighting surging militancy since the former army chief and current President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Egypt’s first democratically-elected president, Mohammed Morsi, in a coup in July 2013.

The army says it has killed more than 1,000 militants in Sinai over the past two years.