Egypt’s top public prosecutor died on Monday of wounds sustained in a car bomb attack on his convoy as it was leaving his Cairo home on Monday in a marked escalation of Islamist militant attacks on the judiciary.
Judges and other state officials have increasingly been targeted by radical Islamists opposed to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and angered by hefty prison sentences imposed on members of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
Monday’s attack claimed the most senior state official since Sisi, a former army chief, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. Mursi was sentenced this month to death over a mass jailbreak in 2011
The state news agency MENA said the bomb blast also wounded at least nine other people including police and civilians.
Last month, the Islamic State militant group’s Egypt affiliate urged followers to attack judges, opening a new front in an Islamist insurgency in the world’s most populous Arab country. Earlier in May, three judges were shot dead in the northern Sinai city of al-Arish.
Eyewitnesses said Monday’s bombing was strong enough to shatter glass in nearby storefronts and homes. A large plume of black smoke and several smoldering cars were seen near a row of apartment buildings.
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