A vehicle bomb near a state security building and a court house in a Cairo suburb has left at least six police officers wounded.
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A statement circulated on Twitter by supporters of the group, Sinai Province, said the bomb was a reprisal for the execution of six of its members convicted of carrying out an attack north of the Egyptian capital previous year.
Maj. Gen. Abu Bakr Abdel-Kareem, the Egyptian Deputy Interior Minister for Media Affairs, attributed the recent rise in attacks on the government to “the preemptive strikes and successive successes by security forces against the terrorist elements”. The force of the blast brought down an exterior wall of the security building as well as those of nearby shops and residences.
While the violence has been largely confined to northern Sinai, attacks are gradually spreading to other areas, including Cairo. Islamic State-affiliated militants have emerged as the most lethal of the groups operating in the Sinai peninsula and mainland Egypt.
The bombing of the Italian consulate was followed by abduction of Tomislav Salopek, a Croatian engineer, who the IS claim to have beheaded in a statement released earlier this month.
Inside his ruined clinic next door to the security building, plastic surgeon Gawad Mahmoud lamented Egypt’s troubles since the military ousted Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, amid massive protests against his divisive yearlong rule.
Each new attack has chipped away at Egyptians’ sense of security and claims by Mr. Sisi’s government to have gained the upper hand over the militants.
That led to a provision in the new anti-terrorism law calling for heavy fines against journalists whose accounts of militant attacks diverge from official statements issued by Egyptian authorities.
Egypt has lacked a legislature for three years, and since winning office after Morsi’s overthrow, el-Sissi has legislative authority and has passed dozens of laws.
“The vehicle exploded wounding six policemen”.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
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The passing of the law was sped up following the assassination of state prosecutor Hisham Barakat in June, and a large-scale attack in Sinai, which was launched days later.
