MOSCOW, November 23 (Sputnik) — A bomb exploded near a railway station in Egypt, raising concerns about the nation’s public transport security, Daily Mail reported on Sunday.
The incident took place in the town of Al-Wasta in southern Egypt Saturday night. The police found a burned body, which allegedly belonged to the person responsible for the blast, according to the country’s interior ministry. Three other explosive devices were detected by security forces on railway tracks in the region later that night.
Egypt has been suffering from bombings and shootings since the July 2013 military coup, when Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi was removed from power in response to civil protests across the country. Morsi had been a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization, which gained popularity in the course of the 2011 Arab Spring. However, its popularity quickly came to naught in 2013 when numerous protests, triggered by poor economic conditions and general anger about Morsi’s authoritarian rule, called for the president’s resignation.
The 2013 coup has resulted in clashes between Islamist protesters on the one hand and civilians and police on the other. Members of Islamist groups were already held responsible for targeting public transport, particularly trains and railway stations.
Early November, a bomb explosion planted on a train claimed the lives of two Egyptian policemen and wounded at least 11 other people at a station in the Nile Delta province of Menufia, according to AFP. Another bomb went off near Cairo train station on the same day, wounding three people.
