(AFP Photo)
President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi met with Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim and several other high-ranking security officials Tuesday morning at the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis to address security challenge facing Egypt.
A Ministry of Interior statement said that issues addressed at the meeting included police presence on college campuses, training security forces abroad and modernising training techniques. The statement added the meeting also covered terrorism and the observation of human rights protocols.
Stated priorities include tightening security at ports, and fighting terrorism while staying within the bounds of the constitution.
Harassment, the smuggling of food supplies, theft of electricity, and Cairo’s endemic traffic problem were also touched upon.
The meeting came a day after a series of bomb blasts killed two police officers and injured 13 others outside the Presidential Palace. Explosives experts Ahmed Amin Al-Ashmawy and Mohamed Lotfy were killed while attempting to defuse the bombs, the Ministry of Health said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Interior could not comment on whether or not the bombings were discussed at the meeting.
The bombings were widely criticised both by political parties and government ministries.
The Salafi Al-Nour Party condemned the bombings and called on the security forces to make “proactive moves” to “detect the movements of criminal elements before [they] commit such terrorist acts”. The party added that this constant monitoring of the situation in the country is the “primary role of the security services”.
The Minister of Culture Gaber Asfour and Minister or Religious Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa both condemned the bombings during a joint press conference on Tuesday morning. The ministers called “support” for terrorists “a betrayal of the great nation” and called for the dismantling of “these forces and their supporters or satellite [groups]”. They also called for regional efforts to combat “these dark forces”.
