16 die in Cairo club bombing

El Sayad restaurant is not officially a nightclub but is among Egypt’s small local eateries, which are quite popular with the locals and foreigners who wish to have alcohol with their meals.

Initial police investigations found the perpetrators were potential customers who were denied entry after an argument with the nightclub’s staff escalated to a fist fight. Most of those who died appeared to have burned or suffered smoke inhalation. I prevented them entering the club around 4am because they get drunk and cause problems. He said initially he thought it was a terrorist attack but then he recalled having seen some of the men outside the restaurant the night before when they were turned away.

According to the interior ministry, they both confessed to carrying out the attack on the nightclub in Giza’s Agouza neighborhood in the early hours of Friday leaving 16 dead, using two Molotov cocktails and gunfire.

Online video posted by newspaper Youm 7 showed thick black smoke pouring through the doorway of El Sayad as onlookers milled outside unable to help. Flames torched the inside of the building and charred the entrance of the club, located on the ground level of an apartment building.

The youths had attacked the main entrance of the nightclub with about 15 Molotov bottles and birdshots.

A manhunt has been launched for the attackers, but the search so far has been inconclusive.

A witness working in a shop nearby said that he heard gunfire in the early morning. While there was no indication of any jihadist link, the arson comes with Egyptian security forces on heightened alert following a series of attacks including in Cairo.