Controlled car bomb detonation in Sinai injures 10

Police say it was too dangerous to try disarming vehicle rigged with half-ton of explosives

By AFP 12 November 2014, 9:53 am

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Illustrative: Egyptian soldiers in an armored vehicle in northern Sinai, May 2013. (AP)

CAIRO — Ten people were hurt Tuesday when police in Egypt set off a controlled explosion of a bomb-rigged car in the town of El-Arish in north of the restive Sinai peninsula, security officials said.

Those wounded were in their nearby home when the explosion went off. They were taken to a hospital.

“We blew up the car remotely. There was a half a ton of explosives” inside, an interior ministry spokesman, Hani Abdel Latif, told AFP. It was too dangerous to try to defuse the bomb, he explained.

He added that those injured were cut by shattered window glass.

Last week, a bomb detonated on a train as police were inspecting it, killing to officers and a civilian bystander.

Tuesday’s blast came during a nighttime curfew ordered since an October 24 suicide attack that killed 30 soldiers in a Sinai zone bordering the Gaza Strip. It was not clear what the car-bomb was targeting.

Attacks targeting security forces in the peninsula have occurred frequently since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year. Most are claimed by jihadist groups reacting to crackdowns by authorities.

Egypt’s Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis jihadist group, which has carried out a string of deadly attacks from its Sinai stronghold, on Monday pledged loyalty to Islamic State group active in Syria and Iraq.