Egyptian troops moved into a town on the Gaza border on Saturday for an anticipated operation against militants who attacked a gas pipeline to Israel and police stations, security officials said.

The officials said tanks and more than 1,000 soldiers and policemen, deployed on Friday and Saturday, would try to restore order to a lawless section in the north of the Sinai peninsula, and then move southwards to a mountainous region where armed outlaws were hiding.

Witnesses said several armoured vehicles moved into Rafah and tanks were stationed in El-Arish, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Gaza Strip, where Islamist militants attacked a police station two weeks earlier, killing a military officer and three bystanders.

The operation came two days after Islamists distributed flyers in Rafah threatening more attacks on police, an AFP witness said. The flyers were signed "Al-Qaeda in Sinai."

A senior military official has denied the militant group has a branch in Egypt, but the government has blamed its affiliates in the past for attacks in the country.

"The forces that have arrived will participate in several surprise raids to arrest wanted men and those who participated in the attack (on the police station)" one security official said.

They were also seeking militants behind five bombing attacks this year on a pipeline that exports gas to Israel.

The operation will start in El-Arish, and then roll into the neighbouring Sheikh Zuweid, where authorities believe Islamist militants are hiding out, and the Rafah border town, the officials said.

An interior ministry official said four armoured vehicles had already moved into Sheikh Zuweid, roughly 15 kilometres from the Gaza border.

Witnesses told AFP tanks were also taking positions in the town and police were deploying for the first time since January, when the interior ministry largely collapsed amid a revolt that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

A police commander in Sheikh Zuweid told AFP the security forces would try to capture militants implicated in the attack on the police station in El-Arish.

The militants are believed to belong to an extremist group that wants an Islamist state in Egypt.

After combing the north, the operation, codenamed "Eagle," would then extend to mountainous central Sinai, long a safe haven for Bedouin outlaws, officials said.

"These reinforcements have been sent to aid forces already stationed, to restore security, arrest those behind the El-Arish attacks and capture outlaws in the mountains," a senior security official told AFP.

He refused to say how they intended to storm the formidable mountain hideouts. "This is a plan put together in coordination with the military and it will succeed," he added.

The officials declined to give a precise number for the troops involved. A 1979 peace agreement with neighbouring Israel limits the number of Egyptian soldiers allowed in the peninsula.

The governor of North Sinai, Abdel Wahab Mabruk, denied the increased forces would carry out raids. "They are here for protection, and to repel any further attacks," he told AFP.

But he said the security forces would not try to comb the area. "This is not a war."

However, the security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity if the issue, said the raids were imminent.

Sinai, home to some of Egypt's most lucrative tourist resorts, also has a largely marginalised and poor Bedouin population with a history of tensions with the Cairo government.

Islamist Bedouin militants were blamed for a series of massive explosions in tourist resorts between 2004 and 2006 that killed dozens of Egyptians and foreigners.

Some of the militants arrested after those attacks fled prison during the January revolt when police abandoned their posts.

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