Deadly Car Bomb Strikes Cairo Police Headquarters

Local Editor

A car bomb struck Cairo police headquarters on Friday, killing at least four people in an early morning blast heard across the Egyptian capital, police and health ministry officials said.

The explosion sent a large plume of smoke billowing above the city and left a deep crater in the street.

The attack came a day before police were to deploy across the capital for the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak, with Brotherhood calling for mass protests against the new regime.
"It was a car bomb," interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif said.
The health ministry said at least four people were killed and 51 wounded in the explosion.
A witness who lives in an apartment about 200 meters from the police building said he had been woken up by the explosion at around 6:15 am.
"My building shook," Yahya Attiya said.
It was not immediately clear how the car bomb was brought so close to the police headquarters, which is surrounded by a high metal fence that was partially destroyed in the blast.

The explosion left a large crater at the gate, and badly damaged the building's facade as well as that of a nearby museum.
Riot police pushed back hundreds of onlookers, some of whom chanted slogans against the Muslim Brotherhood.
Militants have escalated attacks since the military overthrow President Mohammed Mursi in July.

Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood has denied involvement in the attacks, but was blacklisted as a terrorist group after 15 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle at a police headquarters north of Cairo in December.

An al-Qaeda inspired group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, claimed responsibility for that attack.

The Brotherhood has called for protests starting on Friday to mark the January 25 anniversary of the 2011 uprising against Mubarak, accusing the military-backed government of continuing autocratic rule.
The country has been deeply divided since Mursi's overthrow, between his supporters and backers of the military.
"I can now call the Muslim Brotherhood the terrorist Brotherhood," said Attiya, as he looked at the wreckage outside the police headquarters.
"They should all be executed," he said.

Others in the crowd near the bomb site carried Egyptian flags and some held up posters of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the general who overthrew Mursi.
The Brotherhood had condemned previous attacks against the police and army since Mursi's overthrow.
Scores of soldiers and police have been killed in the restive Sinai Peninsula and militants in the desert region have begun to expand their operations to densely populated areas of the rest of the country.

On Thursday, masked assailants on motorbikes gunned down five policemen at a checkpoint south of Cairo.
There have also been several bombings in Cairo, including a failed assassination attempt against the interior minister in September, weeks after policemen killed hundreds of demonstrators in clashes at a protest camp.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team