Egyptian security officials said that the country's interior minister survived an assassination attempt on thursday after an explosive device detonated attempt near his convoy. The powerful explosion, which damaged buildings and left cars burning on a residential street, marked a sharp escalation of the violence in Egypt's two month old political crisis. The military and the police have killed more than a thousand protesters as part of a widening creckdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt's most prominent Islamist movement. Thousands more Brotherhood leaders and members including Mr.Morsi, have been arrested and jailed. As the repression of the Islamists has intensified. and the worries have grown that militants angry at the ouster of Mr. Morsi would turn to violence against the state. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday's blast, which went off in the late morning as Ibrahim's convoy passed through Nasr city, an eastern district of Cairo. The ministry did not immediately say where the bomb was planted.
Ibrahim survived the attack, but at least 22 people were wounded, including two policemen and a child seriously. There were no fatalities. Egypt's interior minister said after he survived a bomb attack that killed at least two people on Thursday that the incident " Its not the end, but the beginning" of a wave of terrorism, the reuters new agency reported. The assassination attempt against Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the police force, signaled the arrival in the capital of the sort of insurgency-style attacks that have been escalating in the Sinai Peninsula. The bombing also harkened back to the insurgency waged by Islamic militantsagainst the rule of now-ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Police were searching for suspects in the area but no arrests had been made, security officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Ibrahim said in a television interview last week that he had received death threats. Ibrahim was appointed to his post by Morsi and came under sharp criticism at the time even by some in the police as too beholden to the Islamist president. But since the coup, he has fully embraced the new military-led leadership and has participated in a heavy crackdown on the Brotherhood and other Islamists.
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Ibrahim survived the attack, but at least 22 people were wounded, including two policemen and a child seriously. There were no fatalities. Egypt's interior minister said after he survived a bomb attack that killed at least two people on Thursday that the incident " Its not the end, but the beginning" of a wave of terrorism, the reuters new agency reported. The assassination attempt against Mohammed Ibrahim, who is in charge of the police force, signaled the arrival in the capital of the sort of insurgency-style attacks that have been escalating in the Sinai Peninsula. The bombing also harkened back to the insurgency waged by Islamic militantsagainst the rule of now-ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Police were searching for suspects in the area but no arrests had been made, security officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Ibrahim said in a television interview last week that he had received death threats. Ibrahim was appointed to his post by Morsi and came under sharp criticism at the time even by some in the police as too beholden to the Islamist president. But since the coup, he has fully embraced the new military-led leadership and has participated in a heavy crackdown on the Brotherhood and other Islamists.