CAIRO, March 7 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian army discovered and ruined nine underground smuggling tunnels in North Sinai province northeastern Egypt, the country's military spokesman said in a statement on Thursday.
"The tunnels are used by terrorists in the processes of infiltration and smuggling of weapons and explosives," Egypt's army spokesman Tamer al-Refai said in the statement.
He noted that the forces also discovered and destroyed two vehicles and seized 40 bombs and an amount of materials used for making explosives.
Earlier on Thursday, the Egyptian police announced killing seven terrorists in Giza province near the capital Cairo, while an officer was wounded in the shootout.
Egypt has been fighting terrorist activities that killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians following the military ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year controversial rule and his currently outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
Most of the attacks were centered in North Sinai and claimed by a Sinai-based branch of the Islamic State (IS) group.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian military and police killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
