Egypt has hanged four men convicted by a military court of killing three military students in a bombing in 2015, security sources said on Tuesday.

The executions were carried out in the Borg al-Arab prison, west of the coastal city of Alexandria, after the military appeals court rejected appeals by the defendants, sources said.

The four were hanged for their role in a bombing in the Nile Delta town of Kafr al-Sheikh that took place during violence following the ouster of president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

President Abdel Fatteh al-Sisi, then the military chief, removed Mursi in mid-2013 after mass protests against Mursi’s rule.

The court also sentenced three others in absentia to death and jailed eight, including Salah al-Feki, head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s administrative office in Kafr al-Sheikh.

Authorities banned the Brotherhood and declared it a terrorist organisation after Mursi was deposed, arresting thousands of its members and supporters. Since then Egypt has faced a growing insurgency from Islamic State fighters in the Sinai Peninsula.

Last week Egypt hanged 15 men accused of deadly attacks in the Sinai peninsula, believed to be the largest number of people executed in a single day since Sisi took power. - Reuters