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CAIRO — An explosive device was detonated in the middle of a busy street in the Egyptian capital on Thursday, injuring at least five passengers on a nearby public bus, according to witnesses and security officials.
CAIRO — A bomb exploded on a busy street in the capital early Thursday, injuring five passengers on a nearby bus and stoking fears that militants were broadening a monthslong campaign of attacks that has mainly targeted the security services.
The authorities said they defused a second device close to the site of the first explosion, near the dormitories at Al-Azhar University, which has been the scene of repeated antigovernment demonstrations in recent weeks.
The police said they defused a second bomb near the area where the first went off, a short distance from Al-Azhar University, which has been the site of numerous anti-government protests in recent weeks.
The explosion came two days after a suicide car bomber attacked a police headquarters north of Cairo, stoking fears that insurgents were broadening a campaign of attacks that has so far focused mainly on Egypt’s security services.
The bombing came a day after Egypt’s military-backed government designated the country’s most prominent political Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group, criminalizing membership as well as any support for the Brotherhood’s activities. Analysts said the decision paved the way for the most severe repression of the group in decades and threatened to deepen a bloody civil conflict.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and it was unclear whether the bombers had intended to target the bus or some other vehicle.
The designation capped a crackdown on the movement that began with the military ouster in July of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president and a Brotherhood leader. The authorities have killed hundreds of Mr. Morsi’s supporters at demonstrations and thrown thousands more in prison.
On Wednesday, Egypt’s military-backed leaders designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, vowing to treat anyone who belongs to the group, or even takes part in its activities, as a terrorist.
The fallout from Wednesday’s decision was swift. The police announced the first arrests under the terror designation, charging 16 Brotherhood supporters in the Sharqia governorate with belonging to a terrorist group, a charge that carries a five-year prison sentence, according to state news media. Four other people were arrested in the southern city of Aswan, because the Brotherhood “relied on them for distributing publications and inciting demonstrations,” according to Al-Ahram, the flagship state newspaper.
Egypt’s leaders have been in conflict with the movement since July, when the military deposed Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president and a former Brotherhood leader. State forces have killed hundreds of the group’s supporters during protests against the ouster of Mr. Morsi. Most of the organization’s leaders and thousands of its members have been imprisoned.
The authorities also shut down 59 nongovernmental organizations that they deemed affiliated with the Brotherhood in Kafr el-Sheikh, and was investigating more than 100 others, Al-Ahram reported. The Brotherhood presides over a vast social services network that has fed its popularity by providing services unmet by the government.
Now, with Wednesday’s designation, the government signaled its determination to cut off any air to the more than 80-year-old Islamist organization.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said Wednesday that those who were judged to be leaders of the Brotherhood could face the death penalty. The ministry also announced that it had stopped publication of the newspaper belonging to the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, closing one of the few remaining domestic outlets for the group’s views.
Analysts said the designation opened the door to the most severe crackdown on the movement in decades, requiring hundreds of thousands of Brotherhood members to abandon the group or face prison, and granting the military and the police new authority to suppress protests. The decision makes it a crime to promote the Brotherhood and could also outlaw hundreds of welfare and charitable organizations affiliated with the movement that help Egyptians with little access to government services.
Officials appeared to be preparing the public for a protracted battle, as a private television channel flashed a banner that said “Egypt Fights Terrorism,” which had disappeared in recent months as the state tried to emphasize a return to normalcy.
The move came a day after officials blamed the Brotherhood for the suicide bombing north of Cairo that killed 16 people, though on Wednesday a separate group — Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has derided the Brotherhood for its lack of militancy — claimed responsibility for that bombing.
On Wednesday, the military released comments by Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s defense minister, quoting him as saying that the “freedom and stability” Egyptians sought “will not come easily.”
The government was not swayed. In announcing the designation, it again blamed the Brotherhood for bombing the police headquarters, without supplying evidence that the Brotherhood was responsible.
“Don’t let these treacherous terrorist incidents affect you or your spirits,” he said. “We’re on the side of pronounced righteousness.”
Officials framed their decision as part of a long struggle between the state and a militant movement, making no mention of the Brotherhood’s more recent emergence as the most successful force in democratic elections after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. “The Muslim Brotherhood remains as it has been,” the cabinet said in a statement. “It only knows violence as a tool.”
Officials have escalated the crackdown on the Brotherhood despite the fact that a separate group called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has claimed responsibility for several of the most recent bombings and assassinations. On Wednesday, the group released a statement saying it orchestrated a bombing of a police headquarters north of Cairo earlier this week that killed 16 people. But the government blamed the Brotherhood for the bombing, without citing any evidence.
The designation represented a victory for government hard-liners who have sought to eradicate the Brotherhood since the military’s ouster of Mr. Morsi in July and who cast doubt on the repeated promises by officials of an inclusive, democratic transition. It appeared to set Egypt, which has been in crisis since the military takeover, on an even more precarious course.
Khalil al-Anani, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington who studies the Brotherhood, called the designation “a turning point” and said it could lead Egypt to a civil conflict like the one in Algeria in the 1990s.
“This is a big miscalculation from the government,” he said. “It is a massive social movement, whose supporters might retaliate or fight back.”
With most of the Brotherhood’s senior leaders already imprisoned, he said, “there is a lack of communication between the leadership and young Brotherhood members. And these people can be dragged to the violent path.”
With the decision on Wednesday, the current government moved against the group even more aggressively than had been the case under Mr. Mubarak, who ruled for three decades before being deposed by the uprising in 2011. In the Mubarak era, the Brotherhood was banned and its leaders were imprisoned, but some members could participate in politics, and the group’s social organizations and charities were permitted to operate.
Mr. Anani said that the cabinet decision would not have been announced without the blessing of the military and the powerful defense chief, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. The military was giving the police “carte blanche,” he said. “They don’t have a political solution,” he said.
In a statement, the cabinet said that the authorities would punish anyone who joined the Brotherhood or remained a member, as well as “those who take part in the activity” of the group or “promotes it by speech, writing or any other means and all those who fund its activities.” The law mandates a maximum five-year sentence for joining a banned group, but allows judges to impose lengthier sentences if terrorism is involved.
Still, Ahmed al-Arainy, a Brotherhood member who has already been arrested once since the ouster of Mr. Morsi, said that after months of killings and arrests by the authorities, the new designation “makes no difference to us.”
“Our problem with them is on the ground and not related to their labels,” he said of Egypt’s current leaders. “They killed us in the street yesterday, and today they’re trying to legalize the crime they had already committed.”
The focus on the Brotherhood appeared to distract the government from Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a militant group inspired by Al Qaeda that has emerged as the face of a potent insurgency growing in sophistication and reach.
On Wednesday, the group claimed responsibility for the bombing of the police building in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura. It has orchestrated several of the most brazen attacks in a wave of assassinations and bombings targeting the security services since July.
The militant attacks have tested Egypt’s poorly trained security forces, stretched thin as the government has sent officers to put down almost daily protests and arrest thousands of people. At least 171 police officers have been killed since August.
It remained possible that a court might reverse the cabinet designation against the Brotherhood, which could threaten the perceived legitimacy of coming elections for Parliament and a president by driving the Islamists further underground. The Brotherhood had already announced its intention to boycott a referendum on a draft constitution that the government views as a crucial measure of its popularity.
Officials underlined the importance of the referendum again on Wednesday, saying in their statement that it “founds this new state and declares once and for all the end of the dark, hated past.”
