A roadside bomb killed two soldiers and wounded six others on Tuesday as it struck a passing armored vehicle in the restive Sinai peninsula, Egyptian military and medical officials said.

A roadside bomb killed two soldiers and wounded six others on Tuesday as it struck a passing armored vehicle in the restive Sinai peninsula, Egyptian military and medical officials said.

A military official said the explosion took place as army forces patrolled an area near the village of el-Kharouba, close to the Gaza Strip in the north.

Militant attacks in Sinai are spearheaded by a group called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), the Egyptian affiliate of the Takfiri group, ISIL which is operating in Iraq and Syria.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has claimed some of the deadliest and most sophisticated attacks against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai peninsula.

Earlier this month two bombings, one of them a suicide attack on a police base, killed a civilian and an army officer. Two civilians and 30 police officers were wounded in that attack. A roadside bomb a day earlier killed three soldiers in the peninsula.

Egypt has been battling militants in North Sinai since the army ousted president Mohammad Mursi in July 2013.

Dozens of security personnel have been killed in the unrest. Security forces say they have killed more than 172 militants since February in recent operations.