A car bomb exploded Friday night in front of a building in the Mohandessin neighbourhood of Giza, leaving no casualties.
The Ministry of Interior said Saturday that the building targeted by the bomb, located in Syria Street, housed three police officers from the Investigation Bureau.
The building is also located near student housing that belongs to the Omani diplomatic mission in Egypt.
The blast destroyed six private cars, as well as the façade of the building.
Following the explosion, security forces surrounded the vicinity of the building and blocked roads leading to the street. Explosive experts are still examining the car wreckage to identify the type and the components of the bomb.
So far, no militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, assassination attempts against security officials using car bombs are characteristic of “Islamic State” affiliates, “Sinai Province”.
One of the most prominent assassination attempts was that launched against former minister of interior Mohamed Ibrahim in September 2013. The militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, later rebranded as “Sinai Province”, claimed the failed attempt on Ibrahim’s life.
Ibrahim, who was travelling in an armoured vehicle, emerged from the incident without injuries.
Moreover, in Sinai, the group typically uses car bombs, as well as roadside IEDs, to target state officials and civilians. In major attack, during Egypt’s last parliamentary elections last November, two car bombs exploded near a hotel in Al-Arish that was hosting judicial personnel who were supervising the electoral process in the volatile peninsula.
The successful targeting of former prosecutor-general Hisham Barakat in a car bomb attack in Cairo, in June of last year, marked the most high-profile assassination in Egypt in decades.
Security officials suspect that the masterminds behind the assassination is militant group Al-Murabiteen, purportedly a cell formed within the larger Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis militant group.
