A policeman was wounded early on Wednesday in a bombing against a police vehicle in the volatile Sinai Peninsula, where an Islamist insurgency is increasingly targeting police and troops.

The blast occurred when a bomb aiming an armoured vehicle travelling on a road south of the north Sinai town of Al-Arish detonated, a security official said.
Security forces are combing the area and surrounding roads in search for suspects and explosives, he added.

Militant groups, who had already expanded their activities in the peninsula since the January 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak, have stepped up their attacks since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last summer.

Nearly 500 security personnel, mostly policemen and soldiers, have been killed by militant attacks since Morsi’s ouster. In recent months, the violence has spread from Sinai to the capital Cairo and the surrounding Nile Delta region.

Egypt has poured troops and armour into the underdeveloped peninsula to battle the growing insurgency while elsewhere waging a sustained crackdown on Islamists — principally Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group.