A car bomb explosion Saturday morning in front of the Italian consulate in Cairo killed one person and destroyed a section of the historic building.
A group identifying itself as the Islamic State of Egypt claimed responsibility for the bombing in a message on social media. The authenticity of the claim could not be immediately verified. Previous claims for similar attacks in Egypt have been linked to the terrorist organization and signed as the Sinai Province of the Islamic State.
Egyptian authorities said that the investigation of the attack was underway and that investigators were reviewing closed-circuit video recordings from the area.
Egyptian Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar visited the site of the Cairo bombing. Television footage showed Abdel-Ghaffar examining the wreckage.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi contacted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and expressed Italy's full support for Egypt's fight against terrorism, according to a statement from Renzi's office. “We will not leave Egypt alone: Italy and Egypt are and will always be together in the fight against terrorism,” the statement said.
Speaking to reporters in Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said that the “objective of the attack was the Italian consulate," although there were no Italian victims in the blast.
"The attack against our consulate comes in a context in which we need to see it as a very serious terrorist threat, to which Italy will respond with firmness, without alarmism, and confirming in full our commitment in the international efforts against the Daesh [Islamic State] of Iraq and Syria," Gentiloni said.
