Five injured in blasts at Cairo metro stations

The casualties were first since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi became Egypt’s president this month.

 Reuters/Cairo

Four small bomb blasts wounded at least five people in Cairo during the morning rush hour on Wednesday, security sources said, the first such casualties in the capital since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi became president this month.

Egypt has seen a wave of violence, mainly attacks by Islamist militants based in the Sinai peninsula on security forces, since the army ousted President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in July following mass protests against him.

Sinai-based militant groups have previously claimed bomb attacks in Cairo. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's attacks.

Explosions hit Ghamra metro station in central Cairo, Shubra El-Kheyma, a northern district of Greater Cairo, and a station in Quba in northern Cairo, security sources said. Three people were wounded at Shubra and one person at Ghamra, but their injuries were not life-threatening, the sources said.

One person was wounded when a bomb attached to a car exploded near a Cairo court house and another explosive device was found at a fourth metro station in northern Cairo, the sources said.

Egypt's judiciary has handed out mass death sentences to Islamists in recent months and on Monday jailed journalists from Al Jazeera television, accusing them of aiding the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, drawing international condemnation.

A spokesman for the Metro company said three devices exploded and a fourth was found at metro stations in Greater Cairo, adding only two people were injured lightly at Shubra.

The spokesman said the metro system was operating normally.