More than 230 people killed in Egypt mosque

Militants have killed more than 235 people in a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt's North Sinai province, on Friday, in the deadliest attack in the country's modern history.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on the al-Rawda mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed during Friday prayers. 

The public prosecutors' office said in a statement that 235 people had been killed and 109 more wounded.

The attack, is the deadliest of its kind since an Islamist insurgency in the peninsula was stepped up in 2013 which has seen hundreds of police and soldiers killed.

Striking at a mosque would be a change in tactics for the Sinai militants, who have usually attacked troops and police and Christian churches.
 
According to a report by Reuters, state media showed images of bloodied victims and bodies covered in blankets inside the Al Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, west of El Arish, the main city in North Sinai.

Worshippers were finishing prayers at the mosque when a bomb exploded, witnesses said.

Around 40 gunmen set up positions outside the mosque with jeeps and opened fire from different directions as people tried to escape, witnesses said.

They were shooting at people as they left the mosque," said a local resident whose relatives were at the scene. "They were shooting at the ambulances too.

Egyptians walk past bodies following a gun and bomb attack at the Rawda mosque in the Sinai peninsula on November 24, 2017. Photo: AFP/STRINGER)

The assailants are reported to have set parked vehicles on fire in the vicinity to block off access to the mosque. 

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi vowed to respond with "brute force" after talks with security officials.