A SUICIDE bomber blew himself up in the car park of a security compound in central Cairo, killing at least four people in one of the most high-profile attacks on the state in months.
The early morning explosion - one of three to hit the capital yesterday - damaged the Cairo Security Directorate, which includes police and state security, and sent smoke rising over the capital, raising concerns an Islamist insurgency was gathering pace.
Hours after the attack, two more blasts rocked the city.
A crude explosive device killed one policeman and wounded nine others in another Cairo neighbourhood and a third explosion occurred near a police station. The first attack also heavily damaged the nearby Islamic Art Museum.
The office of President Adly Mansour said it would "avenge the deaths of the martyrs" who died at the Security Directorate and severely punish the perpetrators.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which came a day before the third anniversary of the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak and raised hopes of a stable democracy.
Instead, relentless political turmoil and violence have hit investment and tourism hard after the toppling of President Mohamed Mursi, who was elected in 2012.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article