(MENAFN- The Peninsula) At least two policemen were killed yesterday in a bombing near a checkpoint outside Egypt's foreign ministry headquarters, officials said, shattering a months-long respite from deadly attacks in Cairo.
The blast brought down a tree onto a car, metres from a pool of blood where one victim had fallen, witnesses said.
The explosion came hours after President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the former army chief who has battled militants since he overthrew the ruling Islamists last year, left for New York for the UN General Assembly where he is expected to discuss militancy in the region.
Two lieutenant colonels died and nine people were wounded by the improvised device, the interior and health ministries said.
Police cordoned off the scene in a crowded district of central Cairo along the Nile River, and searched with sniffer dogs for more bombs.
One of the officers, Mohamed Mahmud Abu Sarie, had testified in a court case on a prison break involving ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2011, when he was an opposition leader jailed by former strongman Hosni Mubarak, a security official said. It was unclear whether Abu Sarie had been targeted over his role in the trial.
The militant group Ajnad Misr claimed the bombing, saying it was defending "the oppressed" and was in retaliation for a government crackdown on Mursi supporters.
The bombing targeted "the forces of the criminal security apparatuses... to give them a taste of what they do to Muslims," the group said in a statement on Twitter. "Vengeance operations being carried out by a blessed group from this proud people will not stop."
Militants have killed scores of policemen since the military toppled Mursi in July 2013. In the past, they have set off several bombs in succession to target first responders after an attack.
Two police bomb disposal experts were killed trying to defuse devices outside the presidential palace in June, the last major attack in the capital before yesterday's explosion.
The attack came days after Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim held a news conference to announce the killing and arrest of several Islamist militants.
"It is a cowardly act and a political message but it won't hinder the progress of the Egyptian people," Cairo governor Galal Said said near the scene of the explosion. Some passers-by gathered around, chanting "The people demand the execution of the Brotherhood," referring to Mursi's now-banned Muslim Brotherhood movement.
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