Bomb Near Top Cairo Courthouse Kills 2; Other Blasts Hit Capital
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CAIRO —Two people were killed when a bomb exploded near a top court
building in central Cairo, the health ministry said, the deadliest
attack in three blasts to hit the Egyptian capital on Monday.
The repeated security incidents in Cairo have raised concern over the
effectiveness of security forces who have pledged to end Islamist
militant violence bedeviling government efforts to revive investment
and foreign tourism crucial to the economy and stability of the Arab
world's most populous country.
An Interior Ministry statement said the bomb exploded under a car near
the courthouse, wounding police and civilians. Health ministry
spokesman Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar later told Reuters that two
civilians were killed and there were nine wounded.
Security sources said the public prosecutor, whose office is in the
building, was inside at the time of the blast. They said he had since
left to inspect the scene of the attack.
Crowds gathered in front of the court, where police had blocked off
nearby roads. There was some damage to two cars in the area and blood
splattered on a nearby pavement.
Later on Monday, a homemade bomb exploded in the Heliopolis suburb of
Cairo, an interior ministry security source told state news agency
MENA, causing no casualties.
A third bomb, also homemade, exploded near a police station in the
Cairo suburb of Maadi, damaging a few cars but causing no casualties,
security sources said. The Interior Ministry said on its Facebook page
the bomb went off near a fire station.
Monday's Cairo attacks followed a string of similar low-level bombings
in the capital on Thursday that killed one person.
While most of the worst attacks in Egypt have hit the Sinai Peninsula,
a remote but strategic region bordering Gaza that is a hotbed of
Islamist militants, smaller blasts have become increasingly common in
Cairo and other cities.
Egypt has been grappling with rising Islamist militancy since
then-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi ousted freely elected Islamist
President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
Sissi, now president, has cracked down hard on Morsi's Muslim
Brotherhood, which the government has declared a terrorist group. The
Brotherhood renounced violence as a means of political change decades
ago and denies any link with recent militant attacks.
Monday's attack was not the first to target court buildings in Cairo.
In October, a homemade bomb exploded near the same area, wounding 12
people.
Sissi signed off on an anti-terrorism law last week giving authorities
sweeping powers to ban groups on charges ranging from harming national
unity to disrupting public order.
Cairo is hoping security concerns will not detract from a high-profile
investment conference it is hosting later this month in the Sinai Red
Sea resort town of Sharm al-Sheik.
Credit: Reuters