At least 100 terrorists have been killed in the Egyptian army’s strikes against terrorists’ positions in the restive region of North Sinai over the past 24 hours.

An Egyptian military source said on Friday that the army launched ground and aerial offensives against the terrorists’ hideouts in the south of Sheikh Zuweid, killing 100 of the militants.

The army’s large-scale operations came a day after militants killed 15 Egyptian troops and two civilians in Sinai.

Reports said gunmen opened fire on troops with automatic rifles at checkpoints in the North Sinai towns of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah on Thursday.

Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group, claimed responsibility for the Thursday attacks. The group has recently pledged allegiance to the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group and changed its name to Velayat Sinai (Sinai Province).

"The lions of the Sinai Province early on Thursday launched wide scale simultaneous attacks against security checkpoints on the road between Rafah and Arish," in North Sinai, read the statement issued by the terrorist group on its twitter account.

The Sinai Peninsula has long been considered a safe haven for gunmen who use the region as a base for their acts of terror.

Since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s former president, in July 2013, gunmen have launched terrorist attacks in Sinai, killing members of Egypt’s security forces.

On January 31, the group killed 30 people and injured dozens in a series of coordinated attacks in Sinai.

FNR/AS/MHB