Islamic State Group in Egypt Claims Security Building Bombing

The driver fled on a motorcycle before the explosion, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Deadly bomb attacks on security headquarters in Cairo and the northern city of al-Mansoura in January 2014 and December 2013 were claimed by a jihadist group which has since pledged allegiance to the Islamic State extremist militia and now calls itself Sinai Province.

The massive blast, which occurred about 2:00 a.m. local time, tore the facade off the government building and shattered windows of surrounding buildings in the residential neighborhood, Shubra.

Sinai Peninsula-based militants who support ISIS, namely members of the Islamist militant group Anbar Beit al-Maqdis, have claimed responsibility for recent attacks on Egyptian security forces.

It says this is in retaliation for a police crackdown targeting Morsi supporters that has left hundreds dead and thousands jailed.

Six policemen were among those wounded in the explosion but officials said none of the injuries were life-threatening.

It demolished a wall in front of the government building and smashed its structure, leaving gaping holes exposing its offices. It added the group to its terror list in December and sentenced hundreds to death in mass hearings.

In a posted message online, the IS said its soldiers of caliphate struck the security building of the state in a suburb of Cairo with a vehicle loaded with explosives.

The attack happened early on Thursday morning in the in the northern Shubra al-Khama district of the capital.

Last week, Sinai Province said it had beheaded a Croatian working for an oil-exploration firm, abducted earlier on the outskirts of Cairo – the first Westerner kidnapped and killed by militants since el-Sissi came to power.

The Cabinet approved the draft anti-terrorism law last month, two days after a vehicle bomb in an upscale Cairo neighborhood killed the country’s prosecutor general, Hisham Barakat.

Comments on Twitter indicated the blast, which heavily damaged the face of the state security building, was heard in several parts of the Egyptian capital.

On Wednesday a report by Human Rights Watch strongly criticized the Sisi government’s new antiterrorism law, enacted this week, for being “so broadly worded it could encompass civil disobedience”.