Bombs at Cairo University target riot police, two dead
Civilian and police officer killed; state television says at least seven others wounded in blasts.
Two bombs exploded Wednesday outside the Cairo University's engineering faculty, killing at least two people, a civilian and a senior police officer, security officials said.
The bombs, which were planted by the roadside, went off seconds apart and targeted riot police routinely deployed at the location, in anticipation of near-daily protests by students supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood group.
The slain police officer was a brigadier-general, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The blasts also wounded seven people - four civilians and three senior police officers. The wounded included Maj. Gen. Abdel-Raouf El-Sirafy, the deputy chief of police in the Giza province, where Cairo University's main campus is based.
Egyptian state TV said the bombs were crude and homemade.
The attack takes to a new level the violence which has come to define protests by students in the nearly nine months since the military ousted Morsi.
The military-backed interim government has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist organization, alleging it has plotted violence since Morsi's removal. The Brotherhood denies the claims, saying the prosecutions are intended to give a legal veneer to the removal an elected president.
The government this week put the death toll from such attacks at nearly 500 people, most of them soldiers and police.
