CAIRO, July 7 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's armed forces killed 40 militants Friday after suicide bombing and shooting on an army check point in North Sinai that killed at least 10 soldiers, the army said in a statement.
"The armed forces have foiled a terrorist attack launched by Takfir elements on some army security points in south Rafah city, bordering Palestinian Gaza Strip," Tamer el Refai, spokesperson of the armed forces said.
"During the security operation, some forty militants have been killed, and other six vehicles used by the terrorists have been destroyed," the statement added.
The army statement said the car bombing killed and wounded some 26 soldiers.
"The militants were in army uniform," the spokesperson said, adding that the dead army men included a colonel.
It added the forces tracked the militants in the farms and desert road by airplanes after their operation on the checkpoint.
The Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid strongly condemned the terrorist attack. "Such attacks make us more resolved to uproot the terrorism."
He stressed that the war against terrorists and those who shed blood of innocents, supported and financed the terrorists will continue.
Earlier, an official security source told Xinhua that at least 10 Egyptian soldiers were killed and 20 others injured in two car explosions and a later shooting at army checkpoint in North Sinai's city of Rafah.
"A car broke into an army checkpoint in the village of Al-Bars, south of Rafah," the source said.
The explosion was followed by heavy gunfire from dozens of masked militants.
Ambulances rushed into the scene, and the security forces were combing the nearby roads in search of perpetrators.
The sources said the militants belong to Sinai-based Sinai State group, which declared loyalty to the Islamic State (IS) group in 2014.
However, no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Later in the day, an officer at Egypt's National Security Sector, previously named as state security premise, responsible for investigations on extremist Islamists, was shot dead by unknown militants after Friday prayer in Qalyoubia province, north of the capital.
Egypt faces waves of anti-security attacks led by IS branch in North Sinai, since the army-led ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 in response to mass protests against his rule.
The attacks were mainly centered in Sinai Peninsula, but some extended to the capital and Delta cities.
Hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed during the attacks.