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Egyptian police headquarters hit by explosion Egypt police HQ explosion: spokesman blames Muslim Brotherhood
(about 4 hours later)
A powerful explosion believed to be caused by a car bomb rocked a police headquarters in a Nile delta city north of Cairo early on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people and injuring scores, according to the state news agency and a security official. Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood has been called a terrorist group by a spokesman for Egypt's cabinet, according to a state-run news agency, after the group was blamed for an explosion at a police headquarters 80 miles (130km) north of Cairo that killed at least 14 people early on Tuesday morning.
The interim government accused the Muslim Brotherhood of orchestrating the attack, branding it a "terrorist organisation". The Muslim Brotherhood immediately condemned the attack, and said the government was trying to exploit the deaths in order to smear the group.
The Middle East News Agency quoted cabinet spokesman Sherif Shawki as saying the Brotherhood had showed its "ugly face as a terrorist organisation shedding blood and messing with Egypt's security". Over 100 were injured in the blast in Mansoura, Egypt's third city, including the area's police chief, according to the governor of the local province. State television said it was the largest attack in the city's history, and anonymous security officials told state media it had been caused by two car bombs.
The attack came a day after an al-Qaida-inspired group called on police and army personnel to desert or face death at the hands of its fighters. Photographs of the building showed significant damaged to at least four of the building's stories.
The group and several others have claimed responsibility for a surge of attacks on security forces since the July coup that toppled the Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. Egypt's prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi,distanced himself from the cabinet spokesman's reported comments, declining to blame any group. "Whoever is behind this act is a terrorist and will be brought to justice and punished according to the law," he told a private channel early on Tuesday. "But I don't want to anticipate the incidents."
MENA said the explosion took place at 1.10am at Daqahliya security headquarters in the Nile delta city of Mansoura, collapsing part of the five-floor building. A security official said 14 people were killed and nearly 100 injured, including the city's security chief. Most of those killed were police officers inside headquarters, their bodies buried beneath the debris. The attack was the latest in a series of assaults on government facilities and police stations since Morsi's overthrow in July that have left well over 100 police and soldiers dead. The deadliest incident involved the storming of a police truck in August in the northern Sinai peninsular that ended with the execution of 25 police conscripts.
It was the first major attack in the Nile delta, spreading the carnage to a new area and bringing it closer to Cairo. Previous violence that killed scores of people happened in Sinai, or in Suez Canal-area cities such as Islamilia. In September, Egypt's interior minister survived an assassination attempt in Cairo that killed at least 19. It was one of several attacks claimed by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a jihadist cell based in northern Sinai, where extremists have waged an insurgency against the Egyptian army since July. No tourist sites have been targeted.
Security forces cordoned off the area, closed major routes into the city and set up checkpoints to search for perpetrators, the official said. Though the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement has never been proven, Egyptian officials and most media outlets have consistently blamed the group for the attacks, claiming that they finance and control the jihadist cells. Legal proceedings based on these allegations were initiated against Morsi himself last week.
The death toll was expected to rise, a state official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press. State TV called on residents to rush to hospitals to donate blood. The accusations have been used to justify an ongoing crackdown against the group and its supporters, over a thousand of whom have been killed since July, and thousands more arrested. The group was the most powerful political organisation as recently as June – but was pushed out of office in July, and formally banned in September.
The official said the preliminary investigation indicated a car bomb caused the explosion. On Tuesday morning, the Muslim Brotherhood issued an English-language statement condemning the Mansoura bomb "in the strongest possible terms" and criticised Beblawi for using "the blood of innocent Egyptians through inflammatory statements".
Egypt's prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, described the attack as a "terrorist incident". He expressed condolences to the families of the victims and vowed that the perpetrators "will not escape justice". No group has yet claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, but a researcher specialising in Egyptian insurgents said it bore the hallmarks of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, who recently threatened to target those who refuse to leave the security services.
MENA said that the explosion damaged surrounding buildings, including a bank and a theatre, and wrecked dozens of vehicles. "The tactic and size of the explosion is reminiscent of previous attacks by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis," said David Barnett, a research associate the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, who has been documenting all recent attacks. "Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has used car bombings in a number of its attacks both outside of North Sinai [on 5 September and 19 October] as well as in North Sinai [on 20 November]. Relatedly, in recent months we have seen a greater number of high profile attacks, which suggests an increase in both capability and experience for those responsible."
The same building was bombed weeks ago, but that explosion caused no major casualties. Militant Islamists have attacked several security headquarters with car bombs or by suicide bombers.
The militant group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, or Champions of Jerusalem, has said it considers Egyptian troops to be infidels because they answer to the secular-leaning military-backed government.
The group and others based in the Sinai claimed responsibility for a number of suicide car bombings and deadly attacks on security headquarters, including a failed assassination attempt on Egypt's interior minister in September using a suicide car bombing. The minister escaped unharmed.
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