CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian military jets destroyed 10 vehicles carrying weapons, ammunition and smuggled goods near the country’s western desert border with Libya, the army said on Saturday.

Egypt’s porous border with Libya has long been a headache for security forces as weapons flow across the frontier, but an attack on police last month claimed by a new militant group has highlighted the security challenges in the western desert.

“The air force dealt with them and destroyed them completely and killed all the elements inside,” the army statement said, without giving a date of the operation.

Egypt’s security forces are battling a stubborn Islamic State insurgency in the northern Sinai region, where militants have killed hundreds of police and troops since 2014 when attacks there started to increase.