An Egyptian prosecutor has summoned 40 people to court over their alleged affiliation with the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group.

On Sunday, Bilal Abu Khadra, a prosecutor in the northern Egyptian province of Sharqiya, referred to trial 40 people who were allegedly in contact with the ISIL terrorists in Syria.

The leader of the circle has confessed to his crimes, including receiving money from some extremists in an attempt to recruit people for ISIL and help them travel to Syria, Khadra added.

According to the official, 20 of the accused individuals have been arrested so far, while the rest of the group will be prosecuted in absentia.

ISIL gained a foothold in the African country last November when Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group, pledged allegiance to ISIL and changed its name to Velayat Sinai (Sinai Caliphate).

The Sinai Peninsula has long been considered a safe haven for gunmen who use the region as a base for their acts of terror.

Since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s former president, in July 2013, gunmen have launched terrorist attacks in Sinai, killing members of Egypt’s security forces.

Earlier in the day, terrorists detonated a bomb south of the city of el-Arish in the restive Sinai Peninsula, leaving an army conscript dead and two soldiers injured.

On January 31, the Sinai-based group killed 30 people and injured dozens in a series of coordinated attacks on the peninsula.

The ISIL Takfiri terrorist group, with members from several Western countries, controls swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, and has been carrying out horrific acts of violence such as public decapitations and crucifixions against all communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians.