Egyptian police arrested four members of an militant group on Wednesday over bomb blasts near a presidential palace, although another group claimed it had planted the explosives.| Any reason will do... |
Security forces "arrested four suspected of being involved in the latest blasts that happened near the presidential palace," a security official said. They were "among the most dangerous terrorist elements of Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) and are being interrogated," the official added.
Three were arrested at dawn in the southern Cairo suburb of Helwan, while the fourth was detained in the capital's Nasr City district, he said.
Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al Maqdis has claimed some of the deadliest attacks in Egypt since the ouster of president Mohammed Mursi last July.
But the bombs that exploded on Monday were actually claimed by another group, Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt), which had warned on Friday that it had planted them. It said then that it had not set off the bombs to avoid civilian casualties, and warned passers-by to stay away from the palace.
The authorities claim that groups like Ansar Beit Al Maqdis are linked to Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, which was blacklisted as "terrorist organisation" in December after a deadly bombing north of Cairo. The Brotherhood denied that bombing as well as all other attacks, saying it is resorting to only "peaceful protests" in favour of Mursi.