At least five soldiers and policemen have been killed in two separate gun attacks in northern Sinai in Egypt on Thursday.

Three of the soldiers were on leave and travelling in a taxi when they were ambushed and shot dead.

In a separate incident in Rafah, gunmen stopped a car carrying two policemen and killed them.

The deaths followed a small bomb explosion on a Cairo metro train in rush hour. Sixteen people were injured in a crush as people panicked following the blast