The second explosion in two days in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula killed two policemen on Thursday and wounded two others hunting for bombers who attacked the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last month, the Interior Ministry said.

“The forces were exposed to an explosion of two landmines … which led to the martyrdom of two officers,” a ministry statement said, adding that two others were injured.

The statement did not say whether the mines at Mount Halal in the northeast region of Sinai had been laid recently or were left over from past wars with Israel.

But a Sinai security source said they had been laid by the suspects in the July 23 bombings which killed at least 64 people, mainly Egyptians.

An explosion thought to have been a landmine on Wednesday damaged an armoured car and wounded at least three policemen searching northeast Sinai for suspects in the Sharm el-Sheikh and other Sinai attacks over the past year.

Some 3,500 police with 20 armoured vehicles began a search on Tuesday in northeast Sinai for those connected with the attacks. Police suspect a group of mainly Sinai Bedouin of organising the bombings.

Police say they have arrested at least eight members of the group, some of them militant Islamists. At least four others have been killed, either in their own explosions or in clashes with the police this year.