Cairo: Unidentified assailants gunned down an Egyptian police general on the street in the Sinai Peninsula stronghold of the Islamic State group late on Saturday, the interior ministry said.

General Ahmed Abdel Satar was the second senior police officer in three days to be killed in the North Sinai provincial capital El-Arish.

On Wednesday evening, assailants killed General Khaled Kamal Osman as he inspected a police unit in a drive-by shooting claimed by the jihadists’ Egyptian affiliate IS Sinai Province.

The security forces have struggled to suppress an insurgency in the peninsula since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Cairo says militants have killed hundreds of police and soldiers, many in attacks claimed by IS.

The jihadists say their campaign is in response to a crackdown by the authorities since Morsi’s ouster that has left at least 1,400 people dead and thousands jailed.

The military launched a major operation earlier this month to root out militants in the Sinai and says it has killed more than 200 — a toll that it was not possible to verify.