NORTH SINAI, Dec 10 (Aswat Masriya) – Security forces defused on Wednesday a bomb planted in the vicinity of a school complex in North Sinai’s al-Arish, police sources said.

The bomb was planted by unidentified assailants, the sources added. Explosives experts defused it before it exploded, later combing the area in search of other explosive devices.

The schools in North Sinai's towns of Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid were re-opened on Sunday after they were shut on November 21, because of the security situation in the governorate.

Another bomb exploded on an international road west of Arish early Wednesday, leaving no casualties behind, security sources said. The bomb was planted on the route of an armoured police vehicle.

Militants have stepped up attacks targeting security forces in Egypt, particularly in the Sinai Peninsula, since the army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013, which followed mass protests against his rule.

At least 30 military personnel were killed in a suicide blast which targeted a security checkpoint in Sinai's Sheikh Zuweid on October 24, in the worst militant attack since Mursi's ouster.

Egypt's most dangeroust militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which has changed its name to Sinai Province since pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attack in a video released on November 14.