Cairo bombing suspect arrested in Egypt

CAIRO - Egyptian police said they arrested a man Monday suspected of carrying out a deadly bomb attack in the capital Cairo, accusing him of having fought with jihadist groups in Syria.

Since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year, militants have launched frequent attacks on police and troops across the country, but particularly in the Sinai Peninsula.

Four blasts targeting the police hit Cairo on January 24, killing six people. An Al-Qaeda-inspired militant group based in the Sinai, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, claimed the attacks.

Police arrested Mohammed Durri Ahmad al-Taliawi, a 35-year-old vendor, on Monday in an apartment in the Nile Delta province of Menufiya, an interior ministry statement said.

Taliawi, who was found in possession of firearms, admitted to carrying out one of the bombings, the ministry said.

The statement also charged that he "took part in terrorist acts in Syria and Libya" and he was wanted on two charges, one involving members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, and the other connected to Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.

On September 5, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-rigged vehicle as the interior minister passed in a car.

The minister survived, and in a video recorded before the bombing and published online by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the bomber claimed to have fought in Syria.

Officials in Egypt's security services have said that some militant Islamists have returned from fighting abroad to join jihadist groups in the Sinai.