Cairo: Suspected militants Friday shot dead a senior Egyptian police officer in the latest such attack in the country, security sources said.

The gunmen fired a volley of bullets at the car of Brigadier Mohammad Al Salma in North Sinai and killed him on the spot. Al Salma was from Al Sawarka, a leading tribe in the volatile Sinai Peninsula.

His colleague Brigadier Omar Fat’hi, who was in the same car, was seriously injured, the sources added.

The attack comes less than a week after suspected jihadists killed 22 Egyptian army soldiers in an attack in the western city of the New Valley.

President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi Thursday night repeated his vow to avenge their death.

Egyptian security forces have been the target of a spate of attacks since the army deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.

Last September, Interior Minister survived an assassination attempt claimed by Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis, an Al Qaida-inspired group active in Sinai.