CAIRO — An Egyptian navy vessel was targeted Thursday by militants affiliated with the Islamic State, who claimed they destroyed it with a rocket while it was anchored off the Sinai peninsula’s Mediterranean coast.

Egyptian military spokesman Brig. Gen. Mohammed Samir said the vessel caught fire in an exchange of fire with “terrorists” on the shore and that there were no fatalities among its crew members. He did not say how much damage the vessel sustained and gave no details on the type of ship or the size of its crew.

Image posted on a social media account for the Sinai branch of the Islamic State shows a rocket attack on an Egyptian navy vessel. The Associated Press

However, security officials said an unspecified number of crew members suffered injuries and that several of them jumped overboard to escape the raging fire.

The Egyptian Islamic State affiliate, which calls itself the Sinai Province of the Islamic State, said it destroyed the vessel with a rocket. Its claim of responsibility came in a statement posted on Twitter accounts known to be linked to the group.

The authenticity of the statement could not be immediately verified, but it was accompanied by photos purporting to show what appears to be a rocket flying toward the vessel, a large explosion engulfing most of the ship and then black smoke rising from the vessel.

The attack on the ship is the first of its kind by the affiliate in Egypt, representing a qualitative evolvement in the military capabilities of the group, whose campaign of violence has been mostly restricted to the northern part of Sinai bordering Gaza and Israel.

The vessel, according to security officials, routinely patrols Egyptian territorial waters and has frequently been used to transport army and police personnel to mainland Egypt, officials said.

The Islamic State claim of responsibility for Thursday’s attack on the vessel is the second in as many days for major operations, or attempted ones.

On Wednesday, the military said it foiled an attempted attack on a military post on a highway linking Cairo to the Red Sea coast. The driver of a car that was carrying 1,100 pounds of explosives refused to stop at a checkpoint, drawing fire from troops, the military said. It then swerved off the road and the driver was killed, it said.

Egypt’s Islamic State affiliate said it was behind the incident, claiming the car’s driver was a suicide bomber who had detonated his explosives, killing several soldiers. The authenticity of the claim, which was denied by the military, could not be independently verified.

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