Blasts hit Cairo, Sinai ahead of election

Suicide bombings in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula hit a police checkpoint and a passenger bus, and a bombing targeted police in Cairo in new violence that killed at least four people Friday, a day before the start of campaigning in the country's presidential election.

A policeman was killed, and at least three others were injured, in a bomb attack in Cairo’s Heliopolis district, the Associated Press reported.

The attack came hours after a suicide bomber killed himself and a soldier at a security checkpoint in south Sinai, and a second bomb attack in the same area wounded at least three.

Officials say the attacks happened early on Friday in the region of el-Tor, the Associated Press reported. In the Sinai attack, the bomber targeted an army checkpoint. One soldier died and five were wounded in the explosion.

The second bomber in Sinai stepped out on a road and blew himself up in front of a bus. One soldier was killed and five wounded were killed in that explosion, AP quoted the military spokesman as saying.

After the toppling of Islamist President Mohammad Mursi in July last year, Egypt has witnessed social unrest and risks to its security, including blasts in the heart of its capital, Cairo.

In the May 26-27 election, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, the now-retired army chief who led last summer's overthrow of Mursi, appears poised to win on a wave of nationalistic fervor. Posters by his supporters around Cairo tout Sisi as a strongman in “the fight against terror” - a reference to a wave of Islamic militant attacks that have escalated since Mursi's ouster.

[With Reuters and Associated Press]