Army spokesperson Tamer el-Refai said in a statement that the air forces launched retaliatory attacks on terror hideouts in the surrounding area of North Sinai, killing militants and destroying vehicles used in the deadly attack.
Officials suspect Islamic State to be responsible for the attack.
The gunmen in four off-road vehicles opened fire on the people who tried to exit the mosque after the explosion.
'It is important to destroy, to undermine, to debunk the narrative of ISIS,' Olivier Roy -- one of the world's leading experts on radical Islam -- tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel in an exclusive interview.