Unidentified assailants on Sunday set alight a police outpost in the Menoufiya Governorate north of Cairo, Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported.

Four assailants in a rickshaw fired petrol bombs at the building in Menoufiya's Sadat City, setting it ablaze, and fled the scene.

Rescue forces have extinguished the fire and no injuries have been reported, Ahram added.

Egypt has seen an escalation in attacks against police and military targets, initially concentrated in the volatile Sinai Peninsula, near the border with Israel and the Gaza Strip, but recently spilling over into other areas of the country.

A suicide bomb attack in December killed 16 people in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, north of Cairo.

The Muslim Brotherhood movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi was designated a "terrorist organisation" after the Mansoura attack, for which a militant Sinai-based faction claimed responsibility and despite the Brotherhood's condemnation of it. 

The Brotherhood was also accused of being linked to recent attacks on security installations and churches.