EGYPT: Cairo residents condemn deadly Nile Delta blast

Record ID: 357717

  • Title: EGYPT: Cairo residents condemn deadly Nile Delta blast
  • Date: 24th December 2013
  • Summary: CAIRO, EGYPT (DECEMBER 24, 2013) (REUTERS) TRAFFIC POLICE DIRECTING TRAFFIC IN TAHRIR SQUARE POLICE OFFICER SPEAKING TO DRIVER PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH SQUARE POLICE OFFICERS TALKING TO STREET VENDOR VARIOUS OF ARMY ARMED PERSONNEL CARRIER (APC) IN FRONT OF EGYPTIAN MUSEUM AT ENTRANCE TO TAHRIR SQUARE PEOPLE LOOKING AT NEWSPAPER STAND STATE RUN 'AL-AKHBAR' NEWSPAPER, WITH
  • Embargoed: 8th January 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Egypt
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: Crime
  • Reuters ID: LVA7GM3MCG3TLQTLH09TEM1BLB9I
  • Story Text: Residents in Egypt's capital Cairo on Tuesday (December 24) condemned a bomb blast that tore through a police compound in Mansoura in Egypt's Nile Delta earlier on Tuesday, killing 12 people and wounding 134.
    Resident Sarah said those responsible were harming their country:
    "This is not acceptable at all. They are destroying their own country. They are causing destruction and yet they want the public to support them, and to elect them so they can rule the country. What they are doing won't do at all."
    One of the deadliest attacks since the army deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July, the army-backed government vowed to fight "black terrorism", saying the blast would not derail a political transition plan whose next step is a January referendum on a new constitution.
    Egypt's Interior Minister earlier said, the attack was an attempt to "terrorize" ordinary Egyptians ahead of the January referendum.
    Cairo resident Mohamed Mahmoud was defiant that this would not happen:
    "By doing this they think they are going to scare the Egyptian people, or that we will therefore not participate in the referendum. But the opposite is true -- we are now more determined to go out and vote. They have revealed their true, ugly face a million times over by doing this."
    With eight policemen among the dead, the blast pointed to the risk of militancy moving to the densely populated Nile Valley from the Sinai Peninsula, where attacks have killed some 200 members of the security forces since Mursi's downfall.
    The military-backed presidency declared it a terrorist attack and has accused the Muslim Brotherhood of turning to violence - charges the group denies.
    Egypt has suffered the deadliest internal strife in its modern history since the army deposed Mursi, the nation's first freely elected leader, on July 3 after big protests against him.
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