On stretchers and in wheelchairs, six Mexican tourists hurt in a mistaken Egyptian air strike that killed eight others returned home Friday, as Mexico pressed for compensation for the victims.

President Enrique Pena Nieto visited the five women and one man at a public hospital in Mexico city hours after they returned on the presidential plane with the country's foreign minister.

Gunmen have shot dead a police general in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, the interior ministry said, in the latest attack claimed by Islamic State group jihadists.

Assailants in a car gunned down General Khaled Kamal Osman during an inspection of a police unit in the North Sinai provincial capital El-Arish late on Wednesday, the interior ministry said.

Mexico's foreign minister called Wednesday for an "exhaustive" and transparent investigation into an Egyptian air strike that mistakenly killed eight Mexican tourists, after she visited survivors at a Cairo hospital.

The Mexicans have said their tour group came under aerial attack on Sunday in what the Egyptian interior ministry described as a botched operation against militants in the Western Desert. Four Egyptians were also killed.

The trial of Ahmed al-Asir at the military court was on Tuesday postponed to October 20 upon the request of defense lawyers.

The military judge's decision to adjourn the session was expected because it was the first time that the Salafist cleric went on trial.

Mexico's foreign minister was headed to Cairo Tuesday with relatives of tourists mistakenly killed by Egyptian security forces, after her government demanded an urgent investigation into the "unjustified attack".

Claudia Ruiz Massieu flew out of Mexico City late on Monday vowing to seek answers from Egyptian authorities on the attack that killed 12 people including at least two Mexicans.

Mexico called on Egypt Monday to swiftly investigate why a group of tourists were mistakenly targeted in what witnesses described as an air strike that killed at least two Mexicans.

President Enrique Pena Nieto said 14 Mexicans were among those involved in Sunday's "grave incident" in the Western Desert.

A military judge issued on Tuesday an arrest warrant against Ahmed al-Asir for forming sleeper cells and plotting the assassination of known figures, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said Judge Najat Abu Shakra issued the warrant after questioning the Salafist sheikh.

Authorities at the Rafik Hariri International Airport thwarted an attempt to smuggle narcotics into the country en route from Brazil, through Addis Ababa and Cairo, the state-run National News Agency reported on Thursday.

The scheme was thwarted Thursday when a Swedish national tried to smuggle the ample amounts of narcotics, that almost weigh 18kg, in 12 plastic containers, NNA added.

General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim has said that the cell of Ahmed al-Asir has disintegrated after the arrest of the Salafist cleric at Beirut's airport last month.

In remarks to several local newspapers published on Tuesday, Ibrahim said al-Asir had been put under surveillance since the end of the battles between his supporters and the Lebanese army in Abra near the southern city of Sidon in June 2013.

The Arab League said it had postponed indefinitely a ministerial meeting set for Thursday to approve the creation of a joint military force to intervene against jihadists.

A meeting of defense and foreign ministers "has been postponed indefinitely and a new date will be set later," the league's secretariat said Wednesday.