CAIRO: Egyptian security forces killed five militants during a raid Monday on a hideout northeast of Cairo where they were training to carry out attacks, the interior ministry said.
Security forces in Egypt have been battling an insurgency by an Islamic State group affiliate based in North Sinai since the military's ouster in 2013 of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Last month, militants carried out a bomb and gun assault on a mosque in Rawda village in North Sinai province, killing more than 300 people in the deadliest attack in Egypt's recent history.
The militants killed in Monday's raid were at a desert hideout located between the 10th of Ramadan city and Belbeis town in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, the ministry said in a statement.
The security forces came under heavy fire as they surrounded the hideout, forcing them to "deal with the source of the shooting," the ministry said.
This led to the death of five unidentified militants, it said.
The militants had been training to use firearms at the location, where security forces found weapons, ammunition, and explosive devices, the ministry said.
The ministry said they also arrested six other "elements" from the same group who were observing "some vital buildings in preparation to carry out a series of hostile operations against them" in Cairo and the southern province of Assiut.