A roadside bomb blast killed three police officers near Egypt’s foreign ministry in downtown Cairo on Sunday, according to security sources and Egyptian media.

The blast also injured several civilians when it exploded in the neighbourhood of Boulaq Abu Eila, sending a plume of smoke over the government building.

Security officials speaking under condition of anonymity told the AP news agency that the roadside bomb had targeted a police checkpoint near the back entrance of the Nile-side ministry building.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Bombings and shootings carried out by Islamist militant groups have killed Egyptian police and soldiers since the army toppled president Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last year.

The attacks have mostly targeted security forces, first in the Sinai Peninsula, but more recently in the capital, the Nile delta and remote parts of the country.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the former army general at the head of the coup, has faced widespread international criticism for Morsi’s ouster last year.

Sisi’s government has also unleashed a ferocious crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 and imprisoned more than 20,000. Non-religious pro-democracy dissenters have also been silenced.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, REUTERS)