Egyptian police say they have killed six suspected members of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in a shootout.
Security forces were carrying out a raid Monday on the militants' apartment hideout when the gunfight broke out. All six suspected militants were killed.
The abandoned apartment in the southern Egyptian town of Dairut, was being used as "an organizational base and to prepare to carry out a series of terrorist operations within the southern provinces," the interior ministry said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Police say they found a bomb, five automatic weapons and ammunition. They also found IS propaganda material "containing the concepts and slogans of the group," the Interior Ministry said.
Hundreds of police and military personnel have been killed by Islamist violence since the 2013, the year a military coup ousted the country's first democratically elected leader, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood party.
The frequency of such attacks has increased in recent months, especially against Egypt's minority Coptic Christian community.
On Friday, 23 Egyptian soldiers were killed by two suicide car bombs in northern Sinai, one of the largest attacks on Egyptian security forces in years.
