http://www.dispatchtimes.com/cairo-car-bomb-wounds-six-police-officers/69049/
Cairo car bomb wounds six police officers
Islamic State’s Egypt affiliate has claimed responsibilities for the early Thursday auto bombing, which wounded 29 people near a state security building and courthouse in a Cairo suburb.
Eyewitnesses said a number of nearby buildings were also damaged.
In a bid to counter deadly attacks, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi signed a tough counter terrorism law, which vests Egyptian authorities with stronger surveillance and detention powers.
There were no immediate reports of deaths from the explosion, which demolished a wall in front of the government building and smashed its structure, leaving gaping holes exposing its offices.
No one group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Egypt has been under significant pressure in recent times.
A massive pre-dawn auto bomb by Islamic State extremists blasted the facade off a police headquarters Thursday and rattled windows across Cairo – wounding 29 but causing no deaths.
IS said “soldiers of the caliphate” had carried out the attack to avenge six convicted militants executed in May, according to an unverified statement circulated on IS-linked Twitter accounts and by jihadist monitoring group Site Intelligence.
A wide crater was left behind by the blast near the four-storey concrete building. The surrounding street, filled with cars, was left dilapidated.
The area was flooded with water from broken pipes and vehicles were wrecked. “It was like an quake”, Hady Gad, a resident living behind the building told AFP.
Insurgents have killed hundreds of police in a wave of attacks on mostly official targets since the 2013 military ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
The Cabinet approved the draft anti-terrorism law last month, two days after a vehicle bomb in an upscale Cairo neighbourhood killed the country’s prosecutor general, Hisham Barakat.
The consulate bombing was followed by the abduction of Croatian engineer Tomislav Salopek, who IS claimed to have beheaded in a statement released earlier this month with a purported picture of his corpse.
Though criticised by rights activists, the law has met support from Sisi’s many supporters who demand a firm hand to restore stability in the country of 87 million people.
Critics say the steep fines may shut down smaller newspapers, and deter larger ones from independently reporting on attacks and operations against armed fighters.
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