Militants shoot and kill Egyptian police commander in Sinai Peninsula

ARISH, Egypt, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- Militants shot and killed an Egyptian police commander in the Sinai Peninsula on Sunday.

The gunmen fled the town of Arish, Egypt, after killing Ahmed Abdel Satar, 47, Xinhua news agency reported. He was the second senior police officer killed by militants in Sinai in the past week; an Islamic State-affiliated group claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting that killed Khaled Kamal Osman as he inspected his officers on Wednesday.

Satar's death comes two days after the Egyptian military reportedly began flooding smuggling tunnels running from the peninsula to the Gaza Strip. The move was part of an ongoing offensive against militant forces in the Sinai Peninsula, which has seen a wave of militant attacks against Egyptian security forces since the 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.

Since last year, Egypt has been demolishing homes on the Gaza border in a bid to create a buffer zone that would stanch the flow of militants and weapons between countries. The buffer, originally about 500 meters deep, was doubled after extensive tunnels were discovered in November.

In March, security forces uncovered a nearly 2-mile long tunnel in the Sinai border town of Rafah, which had been widely demolished during the creation of the buffer zone.

The BBC reported the tunnels play a vital role in the economy of Hamas-ruled Gaza, which Israel and Egypt began blockading in 2007.

Sunday's incident comes less than a week after Egyptian security forces said they killed 55 militants and lost two soldiers during counter-terrorism operations in the Sinai Peninsula towns of Rafah, Sheikh Zuweid and El Arish.