Bomb found on Heliopolis bus detonated without injury

A homemade bomb was found on a bus in the upscale Cairo neighborhood of Heliopolis on Saturday afternoon, the official Middle East News Agency reported.

Civil defense forces received a call reporting a suspicious object found on a bus parked in the transit station at Hegaz Square.

Security forces surrounded the area before detonating the device, with no injuries reported. The crude bomb was made of a metal casing, detonator, wires and a timer.

A photo said to be of the explosive device was widely posted on the Internet and social media sites, but the photo’s origin could not be confirmed.

Civil defense forces later searched the area around Hegaz Square using dogs trained to detect explosives, according to Youm7, an online news website.

A bomb exploded near a bus in Nasr City, a suburb of Cairo, on Thursday, injuring five people. A second, unexploded bomb was later found nearby and defused by authorities.

Police checkpoints on the outskirts of Cairo have been targeted with homemade bombs, some of which were said to have been packed with metal bolts and screws, over recent months, injuring several policemen.

Saturday’s report of a bomb within Cairo city limits appears to be the third such incident since the July overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi. The first was in late September, in the neighborhood of Manial, when a bomb was detonated.

Last Tuesday, a car bomb exploded north of Cairo, in Mansoura, claiming the lives of 16 and injuring more than 130 people. The Sinai-based jihadi group Ansar Beit al-Maqdes claimed responsibility for the car bombing.