Sisi urges nation to back push against militants

CAIRO: Egypt’s President Abdel-fatah El Sissi is urging the nation to back his government’s efforts to defeat militants, saying it’s the mission of every Egyptian.

Wednesday’s appeal came ater a car packed with explosives exploded earlier this week outside Egypt’s main cancer hospital in Cairo, killing at least 20 people. It was the deadliest in the Egyptian capital in over two years.

Sissi said in a televised speech that it’s “not only the mission of the state to defeat (militants), but also, we as a society have to make our sons understand, enlighten and protect them against this” extremist ideology.

The government has accused a militant group known as Hasm for Sunday’s atack, saying it was moving the car to carry out an atack elsewhere.

A huge blast which killed 20 people in central Cairo was caused by a speeding car packed with explosives, Egyptian officials said on Monday as the president decried a “terrorist incident.”

The car was driving against the traffic when it smashed into three other vehicles just before midnight on Sunday evening, seting off a massive explosion just outside the country’s National Cancer Institute.

Four of the 20 people killed remain unidentified, the health ministry said, while 47 others were wounded. Between “three and four (of the injured) are in critical condition in the intensive care unit,” Khaled Megahed, a spokesman for the health ministry, told a press conference.

He said they suffered from burns of varying degrees.

Body parts were also retrieved from the scene, he added.

President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi described the blast as a “terrorist incident.”

In a social media post, he offered his condolences to the victims’ families and the Egyptian people.

The interior ministry said a technical inspection indicated “an amount of explosives was inside the car, which caused it to explode when it collided.”

Social media users posted footage of cars ablaze at the scene and of patients being evacuated from the Cancer Institute, which was severely damaged and charred in the explosion.

Megahed said 78 cancer patients from the institute were moved to other hospitals to continue their treatment.

The UN Security Council has condemned in the strongest terms “the cowardly terrorist act” in Cairo.