CAIRO — Gunmen sprayed a police station in Egypt’s Sinai with bullets today, setting off a brief firefight with policemen before speeding away in their truck, the latest in a series of attacks against security forces in the increasingly volatile peninsula, security officials said.

Meanwhile, the military sent more armored and other army vehicles to boost its strength in a hunt for militants in the wake of a deadly weekend attack that killed 16 Egyptian soldiers.

The security officials also said army engineers were making preparations to destroy or shut an elaborate underground tunnel network linking Sinai and Gaza that is used to smuggle weapons, people and basic goods to circumvent border restrictions imposed against the Hamas-controlled territory by Israel and Egypt.

The lawlessness in northern Sinai, which borders both Gaza and Israel, reached a new level with Sunday’s attack on an Egyptian military border post. The attackers killed the 16 soldiers.

They then commandeered an armored vehicle, which they used to storm across the border into Israel where they were hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed at least six militants.

No one was hurt in this morning’s attack on a police station in the northern Sinai city of El-Arish.