23 injured in Cairo attack near gov’t building

A wide crater was left behind by the blast near the four-storey concrete building. Of those hurt, 11 were police and soldiers. No deaths were reported.

An Egyptian worker checks a hole after the bombing in the street outside the national security building in the Shubra el-Kheima neighbourhood of Cairo early on Thursday.

Authorities stated high-powered explosives have been used within the blast, which was heard and felt throughout the town. Most of the injured suffered minor injuries, a doctor told the state news agency. Kamailoudini Tagba is UNESCO scholarship Alumni, interested in global Relations studies and Security Studies. The group said it was carried out to avenge the execution of six defendants in the Arab Sharkas case in May 2015.

The bombing of the Italian consulate was followed by abduction of Tomislav Salopek, a Croatian engineer, who the IS claim to have beheaded in a statement released earlier this month.

The statement was not attributed to IS’s known branch in Egypt, Sinai Province, but simply had a logo reading “Islamic State, Egypt“. Locals said glass from blown-out windows was strewn across several streets nearby. “We aren’t dwelling in a traditional state right here”.

Access to the area was highly restricted, even in the minutes following the blast, with dozens of policemen, plainclothes and uniformed, discouraging any approach. Press credentials of the few foreign journalists who managed to arrive were checked repeatedly by authorities, the latest manifestation of a distrust of foreigners fed by Egypt’s state and private media.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week for the third time in a year to continue promoting closer strategic and economic relations, officials said Thursday.

Last weekend, he decreed a new anti-terrorism law presented amid a wave of violence and killings this summer. The far-reaching new regulation units a sweeping definition for who can face a harsh set of punishments. Journalists can be fined for reporting that contradicts Defense Ministry statements.

“In recent months, militants have increasingly launched brazen and deadly attacks”.

The attack seems to have been a vehicle bomb, and suggests that Sinai Peninsula is only getting more adept at using them.

Sinai Province, the main militant group in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula, pledged allegiance to ISIL last November.