Bomb Hits Convoy of Egyptian Senior Official

An explosion in Cairo on Thursday narrowly missed Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim.

Ibrahim's convoy was hit with a large-scale explosive, shortly after he left his house Thursday morning. The explosion injured eight, including two policemen and a child. The attack is the first on a senior government official since the ousting of Mohammed Morsi in a military-led government takeover in July.

Though the car he was in was badly damaged, Ibrahim managed to escape unharmed. He appeared on state television two hours after the attack and said that the explosion directly hit his vehicle as well as four other vehicles in the convoy. Ibrahim called the explosion "a heinous (assassination) attempt." He also said that he believed the blast was set off via remote detonation.

Ministry officials said that a preliminary investigation determined that the explosion came from a motorcycle carrying three improvised explosive devices.

No group has yet taken responsibility for the explosion and police are conducting an investigation in Cairo's Nasr City district.

Nasr City is an area well-known for its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and served as the site for one of the pro Morsi protestor camps that were violently raided in August, leaving thousands dead during the bloodiest clashes since the Arab Spring in 2011.

The attack on a senior government official was a departure from the recent wave of protests but similar to the Islamists resistance seen in the country during the 1980's and 1990's. During that time senior officials, including the ousted Hosni Mubarak, faced assassination attempts. The former head of state survived an assassination attempt in 1994 when his convoy was attacked in Ethiopia.

The Egyptian government is also dealing with resistance from Islamist groups in the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and Gaza.

Ibrahim said that the targeted bombing was likely the start of a wave of terrorism, calling the attack "Not the end but the beginning."