Egyptian army says 3 militants killed, 74 arrested in Sinai

CAIRO – Egypt's armed forces say they have killed three "high-level" suspected militants and arrested 74 others in sweeps in the troubled northern Sinai Peninsula in recent days.

Military spokesman Col. Tamer el-Rifai says in a Thursday statement that five four-wheel-drive vehicles and four bomb-making workshops were destroyed in the raids, as well as ammunition and fuel stocks.

Security forces have been battling militants in northern Sinai for years in an insurgency that picked up after the 2013 military ouster of an elected but divisive Islamist president.

Egypt is also facing a growing number of attacks by militants in its Western Desert.

Hundreds of security forces and militants have been killed in Sinai over the years, although exact numbers are unclear as journalists and independent investigators are banned from the area.