Egypt rocked by four bombings, violent clashes ahead of presidential election
With less than four weeks to go until the Egyptian presidential election, the country is reeling from four bomb blasts and violent clashes in Alexandria on Friday, officials said.
In Cairo, two separate bombs exploded, killing at least two. The
first blast happened at a traffic checkpoint in the Heliopolis
district, killing a low-ranking police officer and injuring a
security officer and three security conscripts, Ahram Online
reported. The second bombing happened late on Friday, when a car
exploded on Ramsis Street near a subway station in downtown
Cairo.
“A car with no plates exploded, killing its owner. Explosive
experts are combing the area to make sure there aren’t any
explosive devices,” an Interior Ministry spokesman told state-run
news agency MENA.
Before dawn, two suicide bombings occurred in the Sinai
Peninsula. In El-Tur, a town on the main road between the capital
and a tourist resort, a suicide bomber blew both himself and a
soldier up at the Wady El Tor security checkpoint. The blast also
injured three policemen and another soldier, Reuters reported.
The second suicide attack occurred further south on the same
road, between el-Tor and Sharm El-Sheikh, according to the
Interior Ministry and security sources. A bomber stepped out on a
highway and blew himself up in front of an approaching bus,
killing at least one passenger and wounding three others. The bus
driver, Saad Sulieman, who was among those injured, told
reporters from an el-Tor hospital that he had noticed the bomber
sitting on the side of the road with an ice box before he got up
and detonated his explosives, the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, in the port city of Alexandria, clashes broke out
between supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi of the
now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood Party and residents, Reuters
reported. Two people were shot and killed and five others were
injured during the violence, the Interior Ministry said in a
statement.
Clashes also occurred south of Cairo in Helwan, where three
members of the security forces were injured. Police arrested 27
people in Alexandria, and 15 more were arrested in other protests
around the country.
The attacks are in retaliation for the vicious crackdown on
Morsi’s supporters since his ouster in July 2013, militant groups
have said, according to AP. The crackdown has killed hundreds of
Morsi’s Islamist supporters. However, the army has been waging a
campaign against armed Islamist groups in northern Sinai,
including Al-Qaeda-inspired group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, since the
2011 Arab Spring uprising toppled the presidency of Hosni
Mubarak, according to Reuters.
Campaigning for the presidential election begins on Saturday. The
election will take place May 26-27. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the
now-retired army chief who led last summer's overthrow of Morsi,
appears poised to win on a wave of nationalistic fervor, AP
reported.
El-Sissi is running against longtime opposition politician
Hamdeen Sabbahi, a leftist who believes his candidacy is an
important stepping stone to democracy. “I believe democracy comes
through practice,” he told the Washington Post.