At least 64 Egyptian soldiers were killed as radicals launched multiple attacks on targets in the northern Sinai peninsula, Egyptian officials said.

Egyptian army spokesman Muhammad Samir said that 70 radicals attacked five military checkpoints in the northern Sinai, with 22 killed in gun battles with Egyptian troops.

The army also destroyed three Land Cruisers equipped with anti-aircraft guns.

The attacks, in which car bombs were used, were the most brazen in their scope since radicals launched an insurgency in 2013 following the army’s overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi.

“It’s war. The battle is ongoing,” a senior military official told AFP.

“It’s unprecedented, in the number of terrorists involved and the type of weapons they are using.”

radicals took over rooftops and fired rocket-propelled grenades at a police station in Sheikh Zuweid after mining its exits to block reinforcements, a police colonel said.

The Islamic State group said its radicalswere surrounding the police station after launching the morning attacks on 15 checkpoints and security installations using suicide car bombers and rockets.

Security and medical officials said ambulances could not get to the scene of the attacks because of heavy fighting in which the military brought in Apache helicopters.

“Ambulances are waiting in front of the hospital. They can’t leave. People are bringing in the casualties,” a health official told AFP.

A medic said one woman killed in the clashes had been brought to hospital by civilians.

Clashes broke at six other checkpoints in the area south of Sheikh Zuweid between Egyptian soldiers and gunmen, the security sources said, adding that the Egyptian army fired from a helicopter at the attackers, killing several.

Other Egyptian officials told Ma’an that 300 gunmen had attacked a Sheikh Zuweid police station before planting dozens of explosive devices in and around the building, although that number could not be verified.

In a statement released online, IS said it had carried out a multi-pronged assault that involved three suicide bombers.

“In a blessed raid enabled by God, the lions of the caliphate have simultaneously attacked more than 15 checkpoints belonging to the apostate army,” the group said.

The deadly attacks come days after Egypt’s state prosecutor was killed in a powerful bombing that hit his convoy in Cairo following calls by radicalsfor attacks on the judiciary to avenge a crackdown on Islamists by the Egyptian government.

Since Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted democratically-elected Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, hundreds of Morsi’s supporters have faced a brutal government crackdown that has left hundreds killed and thousands jailed.

Hundreds of alleged Muslim Brotherhood supporters have also been sentenced to death after mass speedy trials described by the UN as “unprecedented in recent history.”

radicalshave retaliated with deadly attacks targeting security forces across Egypt, primarily in the Sinai Peninsula.

Many of such attacks have been claimed by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, a radical group that changed its name to “Sinai Province” after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. MAANNEWS