Egypt’s Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim on Thursday escaped an assassination attempt when unidentified assailants targeted his convoy with a car bomb, injuring at least 20 people in the first such attack in Cairo in years.
The Cabinet vowed it “will strike with an iron hand [against] those who threaten national security until stability returns” across the country.
Preliminary reports suggested a car bomb or a timed device may have targeted the Minister as his convoy left for work in the capital’s Nasr City district.
Hours after the attack, Mr. Ibrahim appeared on state TV to condemn the “cowardly assassination attempt”. He said he had warned of such violence after the August 14 crackdown on Islamists who had set up camps in Cairo to protest against the military’s removal of Mohamed Morsy as President on July 3.
The Nasr City area has been the stronghold of a major protest camp by Morsy loyalists.
The bombing, which comes as security forces intensified clampdown on Morsy supporters, has sparked fears of a resurgence of the Islamist militant assaults that plagued Egypt in the 1990s.
