Cairo (AsiaNews) - A powerful explosion hit and seriously damaged the Italian consulate in Cairo, Egypt this morning. The bomb was placed in a car parked near the building, one of the oldest in the area.
The blast occurred at 5:22 and being Saturday the offices of the diplomatic mission were closed. Fr. Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church commented to AsiaNews this points to the probability that "the goal was not to kill many people, but to send a message to the West and to Italy: terrorism is coming".
In fact, the car bomb only killed one person, a passerby. Four other people were injured, but none seriously. None of the injured included the civilian employees of the Italian diplomatic mission.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the Egyptian priest believes it is "a terrorist attack: it couldn’t be anything else. In addition, the authors of the act wanted to show that the Egyptian government is weak and is not able to protect foreigners in its territory, not even embassies and consulates”.
A month ago Hisham Barakat, a prosecutor, was killed by a car bomb in the capital. In the same month, another blast hit a police station, killing three people. The Egyptian security forces have been battling Islamist militants for some time, but the clashes were largely confined to the area of the Sinai.
