Five blasts in Egypt's Alexandria wound 10-interior ministry

ALEXANDRIA - REUTERS

AFP Photo

Suspected Islamist militants bombed three police stations in Egypt's second city Alexandria on Feb. 10, wounding 10 people, and also targetted two other locations, an interior ministry official said. 

Nobody was injured in the two other blasts in the eastern part of the city, said Major General Amin Ezz al-Din, assistant interior minister for Alexandria. 

Frequent small-scale attacks have hurt Egypt's efforts to project an image of stability after four years of turmoil triggered by the 2011 Arab Spring uprising. 

Egypt hosts an investment conference next month in the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, in the southern Sinai Peninsula, and hopes to attract funds to turn around an economy battered by instability. 

The Egyptian affiliate of Islamic State, the militant group controlling large parts of Syria and Iraq, has claimed responsibility for attacks on security forces in Sinai that killed at least 30 people late last month. 

Islamist militants in Sinai have stepped up attacks on police and soldiers since the army toppled president Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after protests against his rule. Hundreds of police and soldiers have been killed. 

Egypt has launched a crackdown in Sinai and systematically repressed Muslim Brotherhood supporters and other political opponents across the country. 

The Brotherhood, which says it is committed to peaceful activism, has accused the military of staging a coup and curbing freedoms won in the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. 

The government says it is committed to democracy and faces a long battle against militancy.