Reporting & Writing by Yusri Mohamed, Maggie Fick From Reuters

A car bomb killed at least 25 Egyptian security personnel in the Sinai Peninsula on Friday, security sources said, in some of the worst violence against the state since Islamist President Mursi was overthrown last year.

More than 25 people were wounded in the attack in the al-Kharouba area northwest of al-Arish, near the border with the Gaza Strip, the sources said. Medical sources said they expected the number of casualties to increase because some of the wounded were in critical condition.

The attack targeted two armored vehicles stopped at a checkpoint near an army installation, the sources said.

Security officials gave conflicting accounts, with one Sinai-based official saying the attack was not a car bomb but was instead a rocket-propelled grenade operation.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called for the National Defense Council to convene for an emergency meeting in response to what his office called “a terrorist attack.”

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