EGYPT-BLAST Blast near Cairo state security building wounds six - security sources

Record ID: 143353

  • Title: EGYPT-BLAST Blast near Cairo state security building wounds six - security sources
  • Date: 20th August 2015
  • Summary: CAIRO, EGYPT (AUGUST 20, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF SECURITY BUILDING DEBRIS SECURITY BOOTH DESTROYED DEBRIS PIECE OF A CAR BOULDERS VARIOUS OF DAMAGED VEHICLE DAMAGED WINDSCREEN DAMAGED BUS (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) WITNESS, ASHRAF, SAYING: "We were waiting at the traffic lights, cars around us from all directions, and we were surprised, just as the lights changed
  • Embargoed: 4th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Egypt
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACKIFJQFQN4JTJX4MKKC0U3ERO
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: At least six people were wounded early on Thursday (August 20) in a car bombing near a state security building and courthouse in a Cairo suburb, security sources said.
    The sources, who inspected the site of the blast in Shubra al-Khaima, said there was a burned-out vehicle and crater.
    Comments on Twitter indicated the blast was heard in several parts of the Egyptian capital.
    Driver and witness to the incident Ashraf said the explosion took place while cars were waiting at traffic lights.
    "We were waiting at the traffic lights, cars around us from all directions, and we were surprised, just as the lights changed and we began to move, the explosion happened from that direction. All I saw was the flames and the noise and the things flying off the cars and I had people in the car but thank God, nothing happened to anyone and this is the car, as you can see," he said.
    Resident Osama said that the attackers appeared to fixed the timing of the blast on the traffic lights.
    "A vehicle stopped at the traffic lights. They fixed the timing of the explosion on the traffic lights. When the traffic light turned red, two people crossed, they got inside a vehicle and they left. Three minutes later the bomb exploded - it's all tiny little pieces now," he said.
    Militants based in the Sinai, who support the Islamic State group that controls parts of Iraq and Syria and have a presence in Egypt's neighbour Libya, have previously claimed responsibility for attacks on security forces.
    Hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed since the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.
    Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to eradicate militancy, which he has said is an existential threat to the Arab world and the West.
    Egyptian authorities have mounted the toughest security crackdown against militants in the country's history, drawing criticism from human rights groups who accuse the government of stifling dissent.
    This month Sisi approved an anti-terrorism law that sets up special courts and protects its enforcers in the face of a two-year-long Islamist insurgency that aims to topple his government.
    The law has come under fire from human rights groups that accuse Sisi of rolling back freedoms won in the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
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