The armed forces have arrested six suspects in North Sinai, announced military spokesperson Ahmed Ali on his official Facebook page Saturday.

The military statement said that five of those arrested are Palestinian nationals.  

Sinai has been suffering from a security vacuum since the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak over two years ago, although militant attacks on security forces have grown much more frequent since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the group from which Morsi hails and whose leaders are being arrested in a recent crackdown, have been accused by their opponents of giving a free reign to “terrorist” groups in Sinai.

Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy — arrested Thursday — was recorded on video as saying that attacks in Sinai would halt once Morsi is reinstated as president, which led the security forces and interim government to accuse the group together with its Palestinian offshoot, Hamas, of complicity in the Sinai attacks.