A large blast ripped through a security buidling in central Cairo early on Friday, killing at least four, security and health ministry officials said.
At least 51 others were wounded in the explosion at the Cairo Security Directorate, in Bab El-Khalk district, which blew out the windows of the building and stripped off parts of its façade, state TV reported.
Interior ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif told state TV that a car bomb might have been used in the attack that took place at around 6:30am local time and was heard across several parts of the capital.
TV footage showed wrecked floors of the multi-storey building and a damaged facade of the nearby Museum of Islamic Arts. The minister of state for antiquities told journalists in a statement after touring the site that “some artefacts” inside the museum had also been damaged.
Police have cordoned off the area and ambulances rushed to the scene to transport the wounded
Eyewitnesses told state TV that gunmen opened fire after the explosion.
Large crowds of onlookers chanted slogans against the Muslim Brotherhood movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi, including: “the people want the execution of the Brotherhood. Execution for Morsi.” The Brotherhood was designated a terrorist organisation by the cabinet in December.
The blast, heard across several parts of the capital, left a gaping crater in the street and sent smoke billowing from the building.
A spate of recent explosions in densely populated areas has raised fears that militant activity in the border Sinai Peninsula, which has spiked since Morsi’s removal, would take its toll on other parts of the country.
But the Brotherhood has repeatedly denied any links to the attacks.
In one of the deadliest attacks, a December bombing of a security headquarters the Nile Delta city of Mansoura killed 16 people, mostly policemen.
A bomb also exploded outside a Cairo court just before polls were to set to open in last week’s constitutional referendum, leaving no casualties.
An Al-Qaeda-inspired group, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, has claimed responsibility for most of the recent attacks in which scores of policemen and soldiers were killed. The group says the violence is in revenge for the killings and arrests of Islamists as part of a broad security crackdown. But there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday’s attack.
The group also claimed a failed assassination attempt on the interior minister in Cairo in September.