#Cairo hit by four #explosions as #Egypt #insurgency #escalates At least six killed and 80 injured as #biggest #blast comes from #car #bomb outside #police #HQ on eve of 2011 #uprising #anniversary Share 63 Email Patrick Kingsley in Cairo theguardian, Friday 24 January 2014 14.35 EST bomb attack Cairo Security Directorate building Egypt Police officers inspect the site of the bomb attack on the Cairo security directorate building. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters Cairo was rocked by four explosions that killed at least six people and injured 80, and severely damaged artefacts inside a major Egyptian museum. The first and largest explosion was a car bomb that struck Cairos police headquarters early on Friday morning – the eve of the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak. Three smaller blasts later struck near a cinema, metro station and a police station in west Cairo. All appeared to target policemen, with officials saying the fourth was aimed at the motorcade of a senior police officer. The explosions mark an apparent escalation of an insurgency waged by Islamist extremists since the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi last July, which has killed more than 100 police officers and soldiers. It follows an audio warning released overnight by Egypts most prominent extremist group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which previously claimed responsibility for a failed attack on Egypts interior minister, and last months bomb at a northern police headquarters that killed 16 officers. The group has repeatedly condemned the police and soldiers for a post-Morsi crackdown on Islamists, which has seen more than 1,000 Morsi supporters killed, and thousands more arrested. Further violence is feared on Saturday after government officials called on Egyptians to use the anniversary of the 2011 uprising to march in support of the police – while Ansar Beit el-Maqdis warned Egyptians to stay away from public squares. Egypts interim president, Adly Mansour, promised that the government would respond to the insurgency as it did a similar series of attacks in the 1990s. I assure you that just as we succeeded in the 1990s to eradicate terrorism we will again prevail, said Mansour, installed by the army last July, in a speech. Failure in our current battle is not an option. The car bombing occurred shortly before 6.32am, and was heard from several miles away on all sides of the city. CCTV captured a white pick-up truck stop outside the police building shortly after 6.29am, and the driver jumping into a passing car. Two men emerge from the police building to inspect the truck, before walking calmly back inside. Two minutes later the vehicle explodes. After the explosion, a white private car with four passengers started shooting on the buildings said Mahmoud Abdel Sattar, 27, a sergeant on duty in the building. Sattar said he was hit by falling masonry. There was gunfire between the two sides. Everyone started running and there were a lot of injuries. Other survivors also reported hearing gunfire. I heard the explosion, then the ceiling fell in, and after that I heard shooting, said police conscript Ahmed Hussein, who was injured by the debris. My colleague went outside to see what was happening, but ran back inside because of the gunfire. The blast caused a large crater outside the building that quickly filled with water. An official at the scene said it was four metres deep. The force of the explosion smashed windows in buildings dozens of metres away, collapsed house walls and warped the shutters of shopfronts. It severely damaged the collection of the Islamic Art Museum, which stands opposite the targeted building, after debris crushed much of the museums glass and ceramic artefacts. Unescos director-general warned of the potentially catastrophic nature of the damage to the museum, one of the worlds best collections of Islamic art. This raises the danger of irreversible damage to the history and identity of the Egyptian people, said Irina Bokova. This heritage is part of the universal story of humanity, shared by all and we must all do everything to safeguard it. The attacks may strengthen the hand of Egypts government, which has used counter-terrorism rhetoric to explain its ongoing crackdown on all kinds of dissent. Officials and almost all media outlets say Morsis Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist group that it is behind all attacks on the Egyptian state – but there is little evidence of their involvement. Onlookers at the site of the first blast backed the governments narrative, immediately blaming the Muslim Brotherhood for the attack. The people demand the execution of the Brotherhood, chanted a crowd of bystanders, some of whom carried pictures of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the army chief who ousted Morsi. Two mobs attacked a van suspected by some of containing members of the Brotherhood. But David Barnett, an analyst specialising in the insurgency and a research associate at the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said evidence for Brotherhood involvement in the attacks was tenuous at best. While Ansar Beit el-Maqdis has acknowledged having former members of the Muslim Brotherhood within its ranks, these are former members who specifically left because they were upset that the Muslim Brotherhood was not implementing violent jihad, he said. theguardian/world/2014/jan/24/cairo-egypt-four-explosions-insurgency-escalates
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 12:44:59 +0000
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