CAIRO, March 15 (Xinhua) -- At least six Egyptian soldiers were killed when unknown gunmen stormed a checkpoint on Saturday in a suburb north of Cairo, state news agency MENA reported.

A group of militants opened fire at a military checkpoint in Qalyubiya's Shubra El-Khayma district after soldiers performed dawn prayers, leaving several others injured, a security official was quoted by MENA as saying.

Mohamed Yosri, the Qalyoubia security chief, said that two bombs left behind by the attackers have been defused by explosive experts.

Violence and attacks targeting security forces and their installations have escalated across Egypt after the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July, killing hundreds of soldiers and policemen.

But in recent months, militant assaults have been creeping into the capital and other Nile Delta cities.

Egyptian authorities blamed most of the attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest and most influential Islamist group. It was branded as "terrorist organization" last December.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, however, a Sinai-based Jihadist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, closely related to al-Qaeda, had claimed responsibilities for most of the attacks.