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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

Kofi Oppong Kyekyeku

I am a Ghanaian Broadcast Journalist/Writer who has an interest in General News, Sports, Entertainment, Health, Lifestyle and many more.

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