A suspected car bomb detonated outside of the Italian consulate in Cairo this morning, killing one and injuring at least 9 more:
"Huge explosion" hits Italian consulate in Cairo, Egypt's state news agency says. http://t.co/d6vqnHEdta
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) July 11, 2015
NYT: A powerful explosion outside Italian Consulate in Cairo is 1st major bombing of a foreign diplomatic mission since insurgency began.
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) July 11, 2015
The lone fatality was a civilian street vendor:
Rabie Abdel-Aal who was killed in the #ItalianConsulate blast was a 26 year old street vendor from Fayoum. http://t.co/Tkobt6JtuL #Egypt
— Deena Hassan (@deenahsn) July 11, 2015
Horrible.
And after seeing these pics of the destructions, it seems like amazing good luck that only one person was killed:
https://twitter.com/degner/status/619728150763847680
"Italy will not be intimidated," says @PaoloGentiloni after Italian Consulate blast in Cairo http://t.co/STgbxUXqnN pic.twitter.com/WLwHkd0xD1
— Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) July 11, 2015
انفجار ضخم يدمر أجزاء من مبنى القنصلية الإيطالية بشارع الجلاء pic.twitter.com/cd3YCfQGUV
— Omar Elhady (@ElHady) July 11, 2015
https://twitter.com/zaidbenjamin/status/619756585875828736
One reportedly killed after blast targets Italian consulate in Cairo http://t.co/67gtH2KJIR pic.twitter.com/O3dEiEDQ10
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) July 11, 2015
Foreign journalists were detained by Egyptian police while trying to cover the attack. From Italian freelance journalist Alessandro Accorsi:
hundreds of people taking pics with their phones, and they only stopped the foreign journos..
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
we are currently held by police. I'm with @EfaSheef @degner and @Walt_Curnow .
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
journos stay away from the area or you will be stopped. #italianconsulate
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
1 hour after the explosion and police finally starts to clear the area. they are saying that we got here too quickly.. #italianconsulate
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
police keeps asking us why we were here and how we could get here so fast. in meantime egyptian journalists are still allowed to walk arnd
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
the most ironic thing is that the police, knowing that I am Italian, is asking me to contact the people from the consulate who are here
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
just to clarify. we have not been arrested, just held. Non ci hanno arrestato, solo fermato.
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
Eventually the cops let the journalists go, but not before they were reportedly named as suspects on the news:
ok, they let us go
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
@ali_burrasque its your luck day. state tv jst referred to you as a suspect who was taken in for further investigations.
— Dee_Kholaif (@Dee_Kholaif) July 11, 2015
But why Italy? Some more thoughts from Accorsi:
if they wanted more victims, they could have just placed the bomb on the other side of the consulate. terrorist strategy stays the same
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
hard to tell whether they wanted to target #Italy directly or not. location of the consulate easier to attack than other embassies, but
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
there might not be a direct link to #Italy. Italy did not behave much differently than other countries in supporting Sisi and the gvmt
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
thinking about it, I tend to believe that the target was the consulate, but not Italy per se. they might have wanted to attack an embassy
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
but too hard to attack embassies in Garden City or Zamalek. Italian consulate is logistically/strategically a sound target
— alessandro accorsi (@ali_burrasque) July 11, 2015
We’ll update this post as new information becomes available.
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