A policeman was shot dead by unknown assailants in El-Arish, North Sinai Saturday afternoon, Egypt's Ministry of Interior announced in a statement.

The 41-year-old police sergeant, Galal Mohamed Soliman, who was assigned to the "vehicle department," was gunned down outside a police station.

Egypt's security forces have been fighting a decade-long Islamist insurgency in parts of North Sinai; a conflict that spiked following the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.