Firebomb thrown at crowded Cairo metro station
March 1, 2009 by admin · Comments Off
A man threw a firebomb at a metro rail station in Cairo Saturday that was packed with Egyptian families and commuters, but no one was hurt, security sources said.Security sources said the attacker fled the scene. There was no word on his motive.
The attack on the station in north Cairo came less than a week after a bomb exploded in a popular tourist area of Egypt’s capital, killing a French teen-ager. That bombing was the first deadly attack on tourists in Egypt since 2006.
Friday, an Egyptian man stabbed an American teacher in a Cairo tourist area, wounding him in the face. Egyptian state media said the attacker told police he hated foreigners and was angry over the recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptian government, an ally of Washington, has faced heightened domestic discontent in recent months over its enforcement of an Israeli blockade on Hamas-run Gaza, especially during the Israeli offensive that ended on January 18.
Media still pondering bizzare market bombing
March 1, 2009 by admin · Comments Off
The 22 February 2009 bombing in the popular Khan El-Khalili market, in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, which left one person dead and over 20 wounded, has left the Egyptian media still pondering over the bizzare incident.Almost all the major Egyptian newspapers carried headline news of the bombing in which a home-made bomb killed a 17-year-old French girl and wounded some 19 other French students as well as Egyptians and Saudis in the popular bazaar area frequented by tourists.
“The blast in Al-Hussein on Sunday indicates the fragile security situation in Egypt and shows how easy it has become to commit acts of violence,” wrote Khalil AlAnani, a leading political analyst in Egypt, in the Daily News Egypt.
He argued that Egypt was witnessing the rise of new tactics in violence. “It seems we are witnessing a new type of terrorism that can best be described as random individu al terrorism. It is a pattern indicating the absence of a large organization tak i ng responsibility for these operations.”
The Egyptian government was quick to act following the blast, arresting three people almost immediately. Then, government officials went on television, blaming the Taliban and others for the attack, although analysts here doubted their statement.
Anani says “it is most likely that a small extremist group, made up of four or five members who share a violent ideology and seeking to implement it on the ground, that could be behind the attacks, making it very difficult for security bodies to track them down.”
Egypt’s blogosphere has been even more forthcoming with theories. Many opposition activists argue that the government itself could be behind the attack, citing the new anti-terrorism bill, much like the American PATRIOT Act, which was expected to be voted upon next week.
“Nothing better to justify the passing of such a publicly despised law than to have a nice explosion a few days before its passing,” wrote pro-American blogger Sandmonkey on his blog following the events.
Egypt rejects US report on its rights record
March 1, 2009 by admin · Comments Off
Egypt on Friday dismissed as unacceptable a US report which branded Cairo’s human rights record as poor, the foreign ministry said in a statement.”Egypt does not accept any country assuming the role of a custodian of the Egyptian people or a judge of the state of human rights in the country,” foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said.
Egypt “is accountable only to its own people,” he added in a statement.
The US State Department, in its annual report on human rights issued on Wednesday, said that respect for human rights in key regional ally Egypt remained poor.
The report said that Egyptian security forces tortured and abused prisoners and carried out political arrests, and it also criticised the Cairo government for its failure to ensure free elections.
Egypt is among the closest allies of the United States in the region and receives billions of dollars in aid from Washington each year.
Human rights groups in Egypt and international watchdogs say that torture is routine in Egyptian jails and that the country’s powerful security services target political dissidents.
Egypt held parliamentary elections in 2005 which observers said were marred by police intervention and fraud.
