Deadly blast rocks Cairo apartment during police raid

Seven policemen and three civilians killed as bomb explodes in apartment near the Giza pyramids, authorities say.

Damaged cars at the scene of a bomb blast in Giza
Damaged cars at the scene of the bomb blast in Giza on Thursday [Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]

At least seven policemen and three civilians have been killed in a blast at an apartment in Giza, east of Cairo, authorities and state media have said.

Another 13 people were wounded in Thursday’s explosion, a Ministry of Interior statement said, without specifying if they were civilians or policemen.

According to the ministry, the suspects, who it said were affiliated with the banned Muslim Brotherhood group, were planning attacks and had been making explosives at an apartment in Haram district near the pyramids.

The explosives went off as security forces raided the apartment, the statement added.

“Police had information that a group of Muslim Brotherhood members were preparing to carry out aggressive acts in the coming days using explosives and crude bombs,” the ministry said on its Facebook page.

“This group was using an apartment in a Cairo building, and on Thursday night the police raided this apartment where they found a number of crude bombs.

“When the bomb squad experts were dealing with one of the bombs, it exploded.”

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Egypt has seen a wave of attacks since the military deposed President Mohamed Morsi in 2013. 

The explosion in the capital’s Al-Haram district, near the pyramids, came before next week’s anniversary of the 2011 revolution that deposed the longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The interior ministry has warned against any “chaos” on Monday, and has boosted security across Egypt, including around the capital’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the anti-Mubarak revolt.

Source: News Agencies

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