Four security personnel were killed on Tuesday and four others wounded in a bomb attack in the restive North Sinai town of Rafah, security sources said.

A roadside bomb was remotely detonated by suspected Islamist militants as an armoured vehicle carrying the forces passed by the town's center, near the border with the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Security forces have been scanning the area searching for the perpetrators.

Egypt has been working to quell an Islamist insurgency that has spiked since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

The militancy, based in parts of North Sinai, has killed hundreds of police and troops. Authorities have also reported that hundreds of militants have been killed in army campaigns in the governorate.

The country's most active militant group, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis—now an affiliate to the ISIS group—has claimed responsibility for the most lethal attacks. It claimed credit for the alleged bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Sinai in October which killed all 224 aboard.