* Gunbattle after militants ambush Israeli soldiers -general
* Concern about Sinai security despite Egyptian crackdown
(Adds second Israeli soldier wounded, army comment)
JERUSALEM, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Three armed militants slipped
into Israel from Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Friday, killing an
Israeli soldier and wounding another before being shot dead, the
army said.
It was at least the fourth cross-border attack in just over
a year - violence that has persisted despite an Egyptian army
and police crackdown on Sinai militants begun last month.
The latest incident underscored deep Israeli concern about
faltering security in Sinai since the fall of Egyptian president
Hosni Mubarak in a democratic uprising in 2011. Israel is now
building a fence along the desert border to improve security.
"A big terror attack was thwarted," Israeli army spokeswoman
Lieutenant-Colonel Avital Leibovich said of Friday's violence.
"Three terrorists infiltrated from Sinai into Israel and
opened fire towards IDF soldiers guarding the border. The
terrorists were well armed and carried explosive belts upon
their bodies," she added.
General Tal Russo, commander of Israeli troops in the
region, said the gunmen ambushed soldiers who had just
intercepted some African migrants trying to cross into Israel
and were providing water to the group.
"In the first round of fire, one of our fighters was
killed," Russo told reporters near the scene. Another soldier
was wounded by shrapnel when a gunman blew up due to an
explosives vest he was wearing, the general said.
Russo said he had no information on the affiliation of the
gunmen but promised an Israeli response for the attack once
their identities were discovered. Previous attacks were blamed
on Palestinian militants from Gaza and supporters believed to
have established bases in the sparsely inhabited Sinai.
An Egyptian security source said one of the gunmen died when
a bomb he was carrying detonated and the other two were killed
in a gun battle with Israeli forces. He added that the
nationalities of the gunmen were not immediately known.
Israel is putting up the border fence both to bolster
security and curb an influx of African migrants, hoping to
finish it by the end of the year. It will run along most of the
266 km (165 miles) from Eilat on the Red Sea to the Gaza Strip.
Leibovich said Friday's attack occurred about halfway down
the border near an area known as Mount Harif, where the barrier
is still under construction.
In June, militants fired on Israelis building a section of
the barrier, killing a worker, before soldiers shot dead two of
the attackers.
In August, Islamist gunmen killed 16 Egyptian border guards
in north Sinai and hijacked an armoured vehicle which they
smashed across the border before being killed by Israeli forces.
Shortly afterward, Egypt sent hundreds of troops backed by
tanks, armoured vehicles and helicopters into the region in a
joint operation with police to raid militant hideouts, arrest
suspects and seize weapons.
(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Cairo and Allyn
Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem; Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by
Crispian Balmer and Mark Heinrich)