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Egypt says its police forces have killed 16 militants in raids in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.

An Interior Ministry statement Tuesday says security forces exchanged fire with Islamic militants as they stormed insurgent hideouts in the Mediterranean coastal city of el-Arish.

No casualties were reported among the police.

The ministry says the extremists had intended to carry out militant attacks in the city. It says police found weapons, three explosive devices and an explosives belt.

Egypt has battled Islamic militants for years in the Sinai Peninsula in an insurgency that has occasionally spilled over to the mainland.

Egypt said Monday that security forces killed 12 suspected militants just hours after a roadside bomb struck a tourist bus near the Giza Pyramids outside Cairo, wounding 17.