CAIRO — Egypt’s military said on Thursday it had killed Abu Duaa al-Ansari, whom it identified as the leader of the Sinai branch of ISIS, in a series of air strikes near the town of Arish.

It said on its Facebook page that the strikes had also killed 45 other ISIS militants and destroyed arms and ammunition stores used by the group.

There was no immediate confirmation from Sinai Province, ISIS’s offshoot in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

The Egyptian army has been battling the Sinai-based terrorists, who have carried bomb attacks on security forces and government buildings.

Most of the violence has taken place in northern Sinai, whereISIS loyalists are based.

The military has conducted several campaigns to crush insurgents and cut off their arms supplies, demolishing border villages and tunnels it said were used to smuggle arms and fighters from the Gaza Strip.

Locals say the tunnels were used to smuggle consumer goods to Gaza to ease the consequences of the Israeli blockade.

In 2014, an Egyptian militant group called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to ISIS and changed its name to Sinai Province.

The army, which still refers to the group by its former name, did not say when the air strikes took place.