A powerful bomb killed Egypt’s top prosecutor as he drove to work Monday morning, broadening the violent insurgency against the government that militants have been waging for two years.
Hisham Barakat is the most senior official to be killed in Egypt since the insurgency began in 2013, after the military ousted the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
General Osama Bedeir, chief of security in Cairo, said the bomb was in a car parked along Barakat’s route and was probably detonated by remote control.
Photo: AP
The apparently sophisticated mode of attack foiled security measures that were meant to protect a high official who had repeatedly received death threats.
The daylight assassination of so senior a figure was a blow to Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who rose to power on a promise to restore stability after years of political tumult. His government has justified a broad crackdown against Islamists and other opponents as necessary to eradicate the threat from militants.
This month, militants carried out separate attacks near the pyramids at Giza and the Karnak temple in Luxor, two of Egypt’s most popular tourist destinations, further denting the government’s efforts to project order.
Monday’s attack appeared to set Egypt on a course for more violence. The killing of Barakat was seen as likely to embolden the militants while prompting an even more forceful response from the security services.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
As one of the nation’s most prominent judicial officials, Barakat was a focal point for militant groups vowing retaliation for the prosecutions of hundreds of Islamists and the death sentences handed down against senior Brotherhood leaders, including Morsi.
Many of Barakat’s prosecutions had also been criticized by human rights advocates, who said the cases were built on flimsy evidence and politically motivated charges.
Analysts said the bombing might have been the work of one of a number of militant groups that have surfaced in the last year with smaller-scale attacks.
The emergence of these groups, with names like Revolutionary Punishment, have added to longstanding fears in Egypt that Islamists and other opponents of the government would turn to violence in response to the government’s crackdown.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to