Islamic State claims responsibility for massive

car bombing in Cairo

Dozens were wounded

when a car bomb exploded overnight near a security building and a courthouse in a
Cairo suburb. Egyptian authorities have mounted the toughest security crackdown
against militants in the country's history. (Reuters)
Object 1

By Erin Cunningham and Heba Habib-August 20

CAIRO The Islamic State claimed Thursday it carried out a massive car bombing
that targeted Egyptian security forces in Cairo, calling the operation revenge for the
deaths of some of its members earlier this year.
Six policemen were injured in the predawn attack on a branch of the National Security
Agency, the countrys domestic spy service, in the Cairo suburb of Shubra al-Kheima,
the Interior Ministry said.
The powerful blast which could be heard across several Cairo districts has
raised fears of stepped-up insurgent attacks in the Egyptian capital. Islamists and
other militants have waged an increasingly deadly campaign against Egyptian security
forces since a military coup ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Among the factions is a group, based in Egypts Sinai Peninsula, that haspledged
loyalty to the Islamic State. The organization has carried out several car bombings,
including against the security directorate in Cairo in 2014.
[Islamic State-linked group in Egypt released beheading video]

Map: What a
year of Islamic State terror looks like VIEW GRAPHIC

Also Thursday, the Palestinian militant group Hamas said unknown gunmen had
abducted four Palestinians after they crossed into Egypts restive Sinai Peninsula from
the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip late Wednesday. Hamas has clashed with Sinaibased jihadists in recent months.
In a message posted online describing the Cairo blast, the Islamic State said its
soldiers of the caliphate were able to strike the state security building in the area of
Shubra al-Kheima with a car full of explosives.
A bomb-rigged vehicle was parked outside the security offices, which faces a busy
street about six miles from the central Tahrir Square. The driver fled on a motorcycle
before the explosion, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Residents said the
assailant had left the car while stopped at a red traffic light.
We woke up to rumbling in our house, the windows breaking, and things collapsing,
said 58-year-old Sawsan Ahmed, who lives next door to the headquarters. We
thought it was an earthquake and ran out of the house. Its the most terrifying situation
Ive ever been in.
Egyptian insurgents have frequently targeted security installations. The Islamic State
said Thursdays attack was in retaliation for Arab Sharkas, a reference to the site of a
deadly shootout between militants and security forces in a village close to Shubra alKheima in 2014.
The hours-long gun battle was touched off by a raid on a timber workshop believed
linked to militants who later forged ties with the Islamic State. Militants and senior
army officers were among those killed.
In May, Egypt executed six men it said belonged to the cell in Arab Sharkas. Human

Rights Watch has said that three of those men were already in custody when the gun
battle took place.

Egyptian policemen and

security forces patrol the scene where a bomb detonated next to a national security
building in the Shubra neighborhood of Cairo, early 20 August 2015. (Oliver
Weiken/EPA)
[The battle for the Sinai]
On Thursday, a handful of police guarded the site of the bombing, where the blast tore
through concrete blast walls and left an enormous crater. The facade of the duncolored security building was blown off in some places, its windows shattered and
interior mangled.
Nearby, cars were totaled, shop fronts collapsed and livelihoods destroyed.
This government, from the youngest police officer to the ministers, is a bunch of
incompetents, said 60-year-old Mohsen Mohamed, whose parked taxi was torn apart
by the blast. The bomb also damaged his apartment nearby.
Police block off the streets around the building here all the time, and yet they are
unprepared for something like this, he said.
As he spoke, two construction workers attempted to rewire the traffic light damaged by
the blast.
We just installed this! one of the workers said of the traffic lights, which are rare on
Egypts run-down and chaotic roads.
In June, a powerful car bomb killed Egypts top prosecutor, Hisham Barakat, in the
heart of Cairo. A new group calling itself the Tahrir Brigades claimed responsibility for
that operation earlier this month. The claim, which said the group was made up of
defected Egyptian army officers, could not be verified.
There are buildings like this all over the country, said resident Ahmed Ali, a law

student. If the government cant even protect its own buildings, then what?
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