4 killed in wave of blasts in Egypt

At least four people were killed and twelve others were injured in three blasts that hit the Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the capital Cairo on Friday, the Egyptian Health Ministry said in a statement. Two blasts took place in South Sinai's El-Tur city. In one blast, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up in the security roadblock, leaving two killed and five injured. The second blast took place 30 km further from El-Tur, in the direction of Sharm El-Sheikh city, killing one and injuring four others. Official MENA news agency said that the second explosion targeted a bus and those injured were tourist workers. The third blast hit a traffic kiosk outside Heliopolis court complex in eastern Cairo, leaving a police officer and three conscripts injured. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said that a homemade bomb was behind the explosion. Since the ouster of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi by the army last July, a wave of explosions targeted security men and their premises in the restive Sinai Peninsula and they lately extended to hit the capital, the Nile Delta cities and other provinces across the country. A recent official report said the death toll from such attacks reached nearly 500 people, most of them soldiers and policemen. The army has launched a large-scale operation since Morsi's removal to uproot the crime hideouts in the restive Sinai. The al- Qaida-inspired Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group claimed responsibility for most of the attacks.