“A auto exploded after the driver suddenly stopped in front of the state security building, exited the vehicle, and fled on a motorbike that was following the auto”, the interior ministry said in a statement.
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A large bomb targeting security forces exploded near the Egyptian capital early Thursday morning, state media reported, shaking buildings across the city and raising fears of an increasingly brazen insurgency that has stepped up attacks in Cairo.
“Video revealed at least one building facade almost defaced, cars mangled, and heavy concrete street barriers knocked over near the bomb site”, notes CNN. It declared that “soldiers of the caliphate” had carried out the bombing in retaliation for a raid by security forces past year north of Cairo.
“The explosion has caused damage to the front windows, walls and part of the outer fence of the building”, the statement said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Emergency aid head Ahmed al-Ansari said the six wounded were being evacuated to nearby hospitals.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to eradicate militancy, which he has said is an existential threat to the Arab world and the West.
Last weekend, he decreed a new anti-terrorism law presented amid a wave of attacks and killings this summer.
The consulate bombing was followed by the abduction and apparent beheading of Croatian engineer Tomislav Salopek, which the ISIL-affiliated Sinai Province group claimed on August 13. Those attacks accelerated in 2013 following the military’s removal of the elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Cabinet approved the draft antiterrorism law last month. More than two dozen people were injured in the blast outside a state security building.
In response to Barakat’s death, the cabinet also passed a new anti-terror law allowing hefty punishments for a broad definition of terrorism charges and requested a faster appeals process, a move critics viewed as restricting basic legal rights, but that Sisi said would help bring terrorists to justice faster. Journalists might be fined for reporting that contradicts Defence Ministry statements.
Mr. Obama’s policy toward Egypt has not been principled or soundly based, given Mr. el-Sissi’s coup and the charges of abuses in the Sinai.
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The Egyptian military’s practice of scattering small checkpoints around northern Sinai, often manned by lightly armed and barely trained conscripts, has created an environment rich with targets for the militants, who [in the July attack] used suicide bombs, light arms, IEDs, and anti-aircraft guns affixed to trucks.
