Egypt's Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim walks during the funeral service of General Mohamed Saeed, head of the technical office of the minister of interior, with police and Saeed's relatives in Cairo January 28, 2014 (Photo: Reuters)
Unknown assailants on Thursday blew up the car of a senior prosecutor involved in the arrest of several supporters of deposed president Mohamed Morsi in recent months, state news agency MENA reported.
Assailants placed Molotov cocktails and an improvised bomb beneath the empty car of Lieutenant Colonel Amr Hassan when parked in front of his home in Upper Egypt's Minya governorate. The blast left the car completely burnt out.
The incident follows a number of attacks on security officials this week.
Militant gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a top interior ministry official in Cairo Tuesday, hours before toppled president Morsi was due in court over jailbreak charges.
A Sinai-based militant group, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, claimed responsibility for the attack against the general whom it described as "apostate" and "criminal."
In September of last year, Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis claimed a failed assassination attempt on Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim. And in November, a lieutenant colonel, also involved in the crackdown on Islamists and Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group, was shot dead as he was leaving his home in Cairo.
Egyptian authorities have mounted a harsh crackdown on Islamist supporters of Morsi following his ouster by the army in July after nationwide protests.
A wave of deadly bombings in Cairo and neighbouring Giza governorate last week sparked anxiety of a mounting Islamic insurgency amid continued militancy in the Sinai Peninsula.
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