ISIL claims powerful blast targeting Cairo police office

Six police were among the 19 wounded but officials said that none of the injuries were life threatening.

An Egyptian worker checks a crater caused by the car bombing of a Cairo police building early on August 20, 2015. Amr Nabil/AP Photo

CAIRO // ISIL has claimed a powerful car bombing that tore through a Cairo police building on Thursday, injuring at least 29 people.

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

Described by a resident as “like an earthquake”, the overnight explosion shook the working-class Shubra district of northern Cairo, severely damaging the front of the police office and shattering the windows of nearby buildings.

The attack came just days after president Abdel Fattah El Sisi imposed a tough new antiterrorism law. The country is facing a militant insurgency spearheaded by Sinai Province, a local affiliate of ISIL.

Egypt’s interior ministry said that a car had exploded outside the police building, which houses a centre for investigating threats to national security, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Prior to the explosion, a man was seen parking the car in front of the building and escaping on a motorbike that had followed the vehicle, the ministry said.

“One policemen suffered moderate injuries and the rest [of those hurt] had minor injuries,” said health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on an affiliated Twitter account.

It said that the attack was revenge for the hanging of six members of Sinai Province in May.

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

The six men were convicted of killing soldiers in attacks carried out in the months after the army’s ouster of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Thursday’s bombing left a wide crater near to the four-storey concrete police building. The building’s windows were blown out and its facade was left cracked and crumbling, while parts of a wall surrounding it were destroyed.

One of the two guard posts at the entrance of the building was also destroyed.

A blackened car engine lay metres from the entrance and broken metal vehicle parts lay scattered on the ground.

“The front glass window of my apartment broke and two doors fell down. It was like an earthquake,” said Hady Gad, a resident living behind the building.

Militants have killed scores of police and soldiers since the overthrow of Morsi. They say the attacks are in retaliation for a police crackdown targeting Morsi supporters that has left hundreds dead and thousands jailed. Hundreds more have been sentenced to death after speedy trials.

While most of the attacks have centred on Sinai, in recent months ISIL has carried out more attacks in the capital, including against foreign targets.

The group claimed a car-bomb attack targeting the Italian consulate in downtown Cairo on July 11 which killed a passer-by.

That bombing was followed by the abduction of Croatian engineer Tomislav Salopek, who ISIL claimed to have beheaded in a statement released earlier this month with a purported picture of his corpse.

On Sunday, Mr El Sisi ratified an antiterrorism law boosting police and judicial powers. The law also imposes hefty fines for “false” media reports on militant attacks.

The passing of the law was sped up following the assassination of state prosecutor Hisham Barakat in June, and a large-scale attack in Sinai, which was launched days later.

The judiciary and security forces already had wide-ranging antiterror powers, and Mr El Sisi’s government has been accused of using the battle against militants as a pretext for stifling dissent.

The foreign ministry has hit back at criticism, however, insisting that other countries should “respect the independence of the [Egyptian] judiciary”.

* Agence France-Presse