Cairo: A senior Egyptian police officer was on Monday killed in a bomb explosion near the presidential palace in Cairo, security sources said, the latest in a series of blasts blamed on Islamist insurgents.
Colonel Ahmad Al Ashmawi, an explosives expert, was attempting to defuse a bomb in the eastern Cairo area of Heliopolis when it went off and seriously injured him, added the sources. He later died on arrival in hospital. Three policemen were also wounded.
Police defused a second bomb in the same area where Ittihadiya Palace is located. The unrest comes on the first anniversary of enormous street protests that eventually led to the army’s overthrow of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
Last week, a bomb exploded outside a court building in Heliopolis, leaving one person injured. Three others were injured in synchronised bomb blasts at stations of the Cairo Underground Metro on June 25. Four police soldiers were killed on Saturday in North Sinai.
The spate of attacks came to shatter the calm that has prevailed in Egypt since ex-army chief Abdul Fattah Al Sissi was sworn in as president earlier in June. Egypt has seen a series of attacks, mainly targeting army and police forces, since Mursi’s toppling. The government has blamed the violence on Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood and designated it as a terrorist organisation.
