Drive-by Attackers at Egyptian Pyramids Kill Two Policemen

Attackers on a speeding motorcycle shot dead two tourist police at the Giza Pyramid plateau near Cairo on Wednesday, in a rare assault on a tourist site near the Egyptian capital.

The state-run MENA news agency said the gunmen fled the area and that an investigation by authorities is now underway. It is currently unclear who is responsible for the incident.

Attacks from Ansar Beit al Maqdis, an extremist group who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, are regular occurrences in Egypt's largely lawless northern Sinai Peninsula.

However, recent attacks have been spread wider across the country and moved increasingly closer to Cairo. Tourism, a major foreign revenue earner in Egypt, plunged recently, after recovering from a wave of Islamist attacks in the 1990s.

The strikes have mostly targeting individual security agents but have also included near-daily small bombings in public areas. A deadly car bombing last year hit the security headquarters in Cairo, killing four people and also damaging an Islamic museum across the street.

Attacks in Egypt have been on the increase since the 2013 of President Mohammed Morsi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group has been made an illegal terrorist organization in the country and thousands of its supporters have been imprisoned. Morsi himself has recently been sentenced to death by an Egyptian court.

Militants carrying out the attacks in Egypt often site the treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood as the motivation behind their actions.

On Tuesday, Egyptian authorities also arrested Mahmoud Ghozlan and Abdul Rahman al-Barr, two of the group's senior leaders who had evaded capture for nearly two years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.