A senior Egyptian police officer has been shot dead in the restive North Sinai region, the interior ministry has said, making him the latest in a string of attacks on security forces in the Sinai Peninsula.

On Thursday morning the militant Islamist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis (ABM) claimed responsibility. 

The assailants opened fire on General Khaled Kamal on Wednesday night from a passing vehicle while he manned a security post in the provincial capital of Arish, the ministry statement said.

A fire fight ensued between security forces and the assailants, who got away. The area has been cordoned off by police.

The ABM statement, released via social media, announced the group had attacked a police checkpoint in Arish. 

North Sinai, adjoining Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, is a stronghold of militant Islamist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, an Egyptian affiliate of ISIS. The group's attacks on army and police personnel have become regular occurrences since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Morsi has since been convicted of several violent crimes.

Egypt's army last week launched a large-scale offensive to root out Islamist insurgents in the region. It said security forces killed over 300 militants in nine days of Operation Martyr's Right.

ABM is an outlawed group affiliated to ISIS, the group has claimed responsiblity for most of the recent years' attacks on security personnel and positions in the Sinai Peninsula.