Egyptian interior minister survives car bombing.

Egyptian interior minister survives car bombing.

Mohammed Ibrahim targeted in attack on convoy in Cairo’s Nasr City district, a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood; several injuries reported

Site of the targeted attack of the Egyptian interior
 minister September 5, 2013. (Photo credit: Twitter)

CAIRO | 05 Sep 2013 :: Egypt’s interior minister says his convoy was targeted by a “large” explosive device that was likely detonated by remote control on Thursday.

Speaking on state television after Thursday’s attack in an eastern Cairo district, a clearly shaken but unscathed Mohammed Ibrahim said the explosion targeted his own car. He says four other cars in the convoy were damaged.

Ibrahim said two police officers in the convoy were in serious condition and that a child who was near the explosion suffered a serious leg injury.

Security officials said six passers-by were injured in the attack, but that there were no fatalities. The blast damaged several cars parked on the street and shattered the windows of several nearby apartment buildings.

The Interior Minister is in charge of the country’s police force.

The Qatari news network Al-Jazeera tweeted the following picture it says is from the site of the attack . (Courtesy:The Times of Israel)Read More>>>

Egypt’s Sinai emerges as new theater for jihad.

Egypt’s Sinai emerges as new theater for jihad.

Peninsula becoming a hotbed for terror groups since the ouster of Islamist president Morsi

Egyptian Army personnel supervise the destruction of tunnels
between Egypt and the Gaza Strip at the border, near the town
 of Rafah, northern Sinai, Egypt, Tuesday Sept. 3, 2013
 (photo credit: AP/AP Television)

CAIRO  | AP | 04 Sep 2013 ::  An Egyptian doctor once close to Osama bin Laden is bringing together multiple al-Qaida-inspired militant groups in Egypt’s Sinai to fight the country’s military, as the lawless peninsula emerges as a new theater for jihad, according to Egyptian intelligence and security officials.

There have been other signs of a dangerous shift in the longtime turmoil in the peninsula bordering Israel and Gaza since the military’s July 3 ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, the officials say. With the shifts, Sinai’s instability is becoming more regionalized and threatens to turn into an outright insurgency.

Sinai has seen an influx of foreign fighters the past two months, including several hundred Yemenis. Several militant groups that long operated in the area to establish an Islamic Caliphate and attack their traditional enemy Israel have joined others in declaring formally that their objective now is to battle Egypt’s military.

Also, Sinai has become the focus of attention among major regional jihadi groups. Al-Qaida’s branch in Iraq last weekend called on Egyptians to fight the military, as did al-Qaida’s top leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. The militant considered the most dangerous man in the Sahara — one-eyed terror leader Moktar Belmoktar, a former member of al-Qaida’s North Africa branch — joined forces with a Mali-based jihadi group last month and vowed attacks in Egypt.

Topping the most wanted list in Sinai is Ramzi Mawafi, a doctor who joined al-Qaida in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Mawafi, 61, escaped from an Egyptian prison in 2011 in a massive jailbreak that also sprung free Morsi and more than a dozen Muslim Brotherhood members during the chaos of the uprising against autocrat Hosni Mubarak.(Courtesy: Times of Israel)

36 Muslim Brotherhood members die in Egypt.

36 Muslim Brotherhood members die in Egypt.

CAIRO | 21 Aug 2013 :: At least 36 members of the Muslim Brotherhood were killed in a riot in Egypt when they attempted to escape while being moved to a jail, state news agency MENA reported.

Armed clashes broke out Sunday between security forces and militants, who intercepted and attacked police vehicles carrying the Muslim Brotherhood detainees to the Abu Zaabal prison near Cairo, Xinhua said Monday.
The clashes took place before the police vehicles entered the prison.
The detainees tried to escape with the help of the militants, who took a police officer hostage. The security men fired tear gas shells in response. Some detainees suffered from suffocation while several militants were shot dead.
More than 600 people have been sent to 15 days in custody pending investigation over Saturday''s clashes at Al-Fatah mosque which left at least 79 dead.(Courtesy:News24)

Egypt's carnage kills 578 as crisis deepens.

Egypt's carnage kills 578 as crisis deepens.

A man grieves as he looks at one of many bodies
 laid out in a make shift morgue after Egyptian
security forces stormed two huge protest camps
at the Rabaa al-Adawiya and Al-Nahda squares
where supporters of ousted president Mohamed
 Morsi were camped, in Cairo, on August 14,
 2013. — Photo AFP

CAIRO | AFP | 16 Aug 2013 ::  At least 578 people were killed in the violence that swept Egypt Wednesday, the health ministry said, with more than 300 of them losing their lives after police assaults on Cairo sit-ins.

The death toll included 43 policemen and 318 protesters killed in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda square protest camps, senior health ministry official Khaled al-Khatib told AFP Thursday. In total, 535 civilians died nationwide.

The army-backed interim government imposed a month-long nationwide state of emergency, and curfews in Cairo and 13 other provinces.

Shortly after the curfew ended on Thursday morning, light traffic began returning to Cairo's streets, with roads blocked for weeks by the pro-Morsi protests now reopened.

A health ministry official said at least 300 civilians had been killed throughout the country, updating an earlier toll. The interior ministry added that 43 security personnel had lost their lives.

Egypt's press carried photos Thursday of Morsi supporters brandishing weapons and throwing stones at police during the previous day's confrontations.

“The nightmare of the Brotherhood is gone,” daily Al-Akhbar's front page headline read.

“The Brotherhood's last battle,” added Al-Shorouk.

At least four churches were attacked, with Christian activists accusing Morsi loyalists of waging “a war of retaliation against Copts in Egypt”.

The day's violence was the worst since the 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak, with an AFP correspondent counting at least 124 bodies in makeshift morgues in the Rabaa al-Adawiya protest site.(Courtesy:Dawn)Read More>>>

Bomb explodes at Egypt police station amid deadly rival clashes.

Bomb explodes at Egypt police station amid deadly rival clashes.

Supporters of ousted President Mursi walk near the mock
 grave of a pro-Mursi protester. (Reuters)

Al Arabia | 24 Jul 2013 :: One person was killed and 17 others wounded after a bomb was hurled at a police station in an Egyptian province early Wednesday, security sources said.

The bomb was thrown by unknown assailants from a passing car in Mansoura, a province north of Cairo.

The violence came a day after clashes in Cairo between opponents and Islamist supporters of Egypt's deposed president, Mohammed Mursi, which killed least 10 people.

Shortly after Wednesday’s explosion, a Health Ministry statement confirmed one person was killed and 12 were injured. Security sources speaking to Reuters put the injuries toll at 17.

In a separate incident on Wednesday, at least one Mursi supporter was killed during a protest march in Cairo, a security source and the Muslim Brotherhood said.

The Muslim Brotherhood said on its website that police in civilian clothes had opened fire using live ammunition early on Wednesday on marching Mursi supporters, killing two and injuring others, Reuters reported.

The Muslim Brotherhood has accused the Ministry of Interior of using thugs in plain clothes to attack protesters, but security officials have denied this accusation.

The recent violence has pushed the deaths to at least 100 since the army deposed Mursi and replaced him with an interim administration led by Adli Mansour, the head of the constitutional court.

Egypt can expect new elections to be held in about six months.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Egypt unrest: At least 6 killed in clashes near Cairo University.

Egypt unrest: At least 6 killed in clashes near Cairo University.

An Egyptian inspects destroyed cars following overnight

 clashes between opponents and supporters of ousted

 president Mohamed Morsi near the Cairo University in Giza,

 Egypt (Mohammed Saber, EPA / July 23, 2013)

CAIRO  | 23 Jul 2013 ::  Stones and gunfire killed at least six people early Tuesday as clashes between opponents and supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi intensified near Cairo University, which has become a central battleground in the country’s political unrest.

Violence between the two camps -- sometimes with the army and police in the middle -- has escalated in recent days as each side has provoked the other. More than 90 people have been killed nationwide since Morsi was toppled by a coup on July 3.

Thousands of Morsi supporters have been staging sit-ins at the university and across the Nile at the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque. Most of the anti-Morsi contingent has been hunkered in Tahrir Square. The sides have been edging closer to each other, including a march on the U.S. Embassy by pro-Morsi demonstrators Monday that sparked fighting with protesters in nearby Tahrir.

Supplies of smuggled weapons have increased the bloodshed. Both factions say they have been targeted by snipers. Pistols, including homemade guns, have often been used and many men stand on the front lines like urban warriors, wearing construction helmets and carrying shields of corrugated tin.

Interim President Adly Mahmoud Mansour has called for reconciliation that will turn to “a new page in the nation’s book. No contempt, no hatred, no divisions and no collisions.”

A political solution remains elusive. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood party said it would not end its sit-ins or cooperate with the military-backed government until Morsi, the country’s first freely elected president, is reinstated. That is highly improbable, especially as a new coalition government has begun amending the constitution and preparing for parliamentary elections in six months.

The clashes highlight the country’s polarization but Morsi supporters do not appear to have the numbers to stop a political process that is moving quickly without their input or participation. The former president has been detained by the military without formal charges. His family has demanded his release, blaming the army for kidnapping him and arresting hundreds of Brotherhood members.

On Monday, Morsi’s daughter Shaimaa told reporters: "We hold the leaders of the bloody military coup fully responsible for the safety and security of the president."(Courtesy:Los  Angeles Time)