Car bomb (file)
Car bomb (file)Flash 90

A car bomb in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula killed 28 soldiers on Friday.

The attack is one of the deadliest attacks against security forces since the military deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi last year.

Security officials said 26 other soldiers were wounded in the attack near El-Arish, the main town in north Sinai.

Security officials said the car bomb attack targeted an army checkpoint in the Sinai and was carried out by suspected jihadists.

"Most of the wounded have been seriously injured and not all of them have been taken to hospital yet," health ministry official Tareq Khater told AFP.

It is the latest in a string of bloody attacks against security forces in Egypt.

Most of the attacks in Egypt have been carried out by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, the most active group in Egypt.

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has killed hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police over the last year, since Morsi’s ouster, and beheaded several people in recent weeks, saying they were spies for Israeli intelligence.

Among the attacks claimed by the group since the ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi was the assassination of a top Egyptian police general, who was gunned down as he left his home in a west Cairo neighborhood, and a bus bombing on a tour bus filled with South Korean tourists in the Sinai.

The group has expressed support for Islamic State (ISIS) group jihadists in Iraq and Syria, although it has not formally pledged its allegiance.

Its leader, Walid Attalah, was recently arrested, days after a large factory for manufacturing rockets belonging to the group was discovered and destroyed by Egyptian security forces.

Friday’s attack comes several days after an Egyptian military court sentenced to death seven members of the group for carrying out deadly attacks on the army, military officials said.

Following Friday’s attack, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi summoned a meeting of the national defense council -- the country's highest security body -- to discuss the killings, his office said.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)