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Twelve Egyptian soldiers were killed and six others injured Friday in an attack on a military checkpoint in the Sinai peninsula where the army has been fighting an Islamist insurgency for nearly a decade.

A police official and medic said that mortar rounds were fired at the army post during clashes with jihadists in the Bir al-Abd area west of El-Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai.

"Terrorist elements attacked a checkpoint in the northern Sinai. The clashes left 12 soldiers dead and wounded six others," an army statement said, adding that "15 terrorists were killed".

There was no immediate claim on the attack, though the Islamic State's Egyptian affiliate has claimed several attacks on Egyptian security forces and foreigners in the past.

Jihadists in Egypt have killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

They pledged allegiance to IS more than a year later, and their attacks have persisted despite a sweeping military campaign in the peninsula which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this month, gunmen killed five Egyptian police conscripts in El-Arish.

The jihadists claimed the bombing last year of a Russian airliner carrying tourists home from a Sinai resort. All 224 people on board were killed.

(Staff with AFP)