Cairo - (People’s Daily) A 24-year-old man was detained on Tuesday near the US Embassy in downtown Cairo after a bottle containing flammable chemicals caught fire in his backpack.
A statement released by Egypt’s state information service named the suspect as 24-year-old Abdullah Ayman Abdesamea.
“Preliminary investigations suggest that he harbors some extremist ideas and was intending to use [the chemicals] to commit an act of aggression,” the statement said.
The incident happened at around 1:30 pm local time. The US Embassy said on its Twitter account that it was resuming normal business after police finished their investigation at the scene. A CCTV video that went viral on social media showed a man in a black T-shirt kneeling on the road amid a crowd of bystanders and police. He had his trousers removed before being led away, and further footage appeared to show him with the T-shirt tied round his head talking to police.
A witness told local media that she heard a blast and then saw the man catch on fire close to the Semiramis Hotel, right across the street from the embassy.
Egypt has been fighting Islamic State-related extremists based in the Sinai Peninsula in recent years.
(Passant Sayed Khalil also contributed to this article)
