Islamic State’s affiliate in Egypt said it was responsible for a vehicle bombing near a security building in Cairo that wounded 29 people on Thursday, in the latest militant attack in the capital.
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A parked vehicle in front of the building blew up right after being abandoned by its driver who escaped with a motorbike which had been following him, the release specified.
The statement said the bombing early Thursday was to avenge the execution of six convicted militants.
Inside his ruined clinic subsequent door to the safety constructing, plastic surgeon Gawad Mahmoud lamented Egypt’s troubles because the army ousted Morsi, the nation’s first freely elected president, amid large protests towards his divisive year-long rule.
The blast comes just three days after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi enacted a swath of new laws that he claims are needed to fight the insurgent groups now plaguing the country.
The claim came in a message circulated on social media by the Sinai Province of the Islamic State, which has claimed a series of similar bombings in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt.
There has been a wave of attacks in Egypt since el-Sissi overthrew the divisive Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and launched a major crackdown against his supporters and dissent in general.
The blast, which went off around 2 a.m., demolished a wall in front of the government building, smashed its structure and left gaping holes exposing its offices.
“With this sweeping new decree, Egypt’s president has taken a big step toward enshrining a permanent state of emergency as the law of the land”, HRW’s Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director Nadim Houry said.
IS said the attack on Thursday was retaliation for the Arab Sharkas, which is a reference to a deadly shootout site between security forces and militants in 2014.
The Sinai Province has previously organized attacks on Egyptian security forces.
The attack reflected a strategy of the group’s branch in Egypt, which has targeted authorities but avoided spectacularly bloody civilian casualties – at least for now.
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On Wednesday a report by Human Rights Watch strongly criticized the Sisi government’s new antiterrorism law, enacted this week, for being “so broadly worded it could encompass civil disobedience”.
