At least 12 alleged militants were killed and eight more were arrested late Monday, as the joint security campaign between the police and the army continues in the troubled Northern Sinai Peninsula. Security sources in North Sinai said that army Apache planes launched airstrikes on a house located in Southern Sheikh Zuwaid city, where 12 militants affiliated with Wilayat Sinai jihadi group were holding a secret meeting. The source added that the military planes destroyed the house as well as a private car and 4 motorbikes nearby the house. Moreover, the special military forces stormed a terrorist hotbed in North Sinai and captured 8 Takfiri elements, and seized their weapons. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM,) a Sinai-based militant group, has recently self-proclaimed itself as Wilayat Sinai (The State of Sinai.) The group's attacks against the army escalated since the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. The major of these attacks was on Jan. 29 with at least 40 deaths from among soldiers and civilians. The group pledged its allegiance to the militant Islamic State group in November 2014, and has also released videos of beheading of captured Bedouins and Sinai residents, whom the group allegedly said collaborated with Israel and gave information about the group to the army.