CAIRO -- Three years after the start of its revolt for democracy, the capital was shaken Friday by four deadly bombings, in the clearest sign yet that Egypt is entering a prolonged and violent struggle between the military-backed government and a growing Islamist insurgency.

The bombs, scattered around the city and all aimed at the police, killed six people and left in their aftermath a grim realization that a cycle of terrorism and repression is hardening the determination of each side to fight to the death, all but extinguishing the 3-year-old dream of an inclusive democracy and open debate.

"The timing is a message that the third anniversary of the revolution will not be a celebration; they want to color it with blood," said Moataz Abdel-Fattah, a political scientist at the American University of Cairo. "And it will only darken the political waters, with more people calling for a hard-line stance against the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters."

Within two hours of the first and largest explosion, a car bombing at dawn outside a security headquarters, a crowd of at least 200 had gathered at the police line to cheer for Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who deposed President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last summer and is now poised to succeed him.

"The people want the execution of the Brothers," they chanted, blaming the Brotherhood for the attack in a bloodthirsty imitation of the calls that rang out three years ago calling for "the fall of the regime.



A government statement evoked the earlier battle against a militant Islamist insurgency that flared here in the 1990s, vowing to "uproot it once again" and "show neither pity nor mercy."

"Everything is left now to the army and the police, there is no politics in Egypt," said Fahmy Howeidy, a veteran columnist considered sympathetic to political Islam. "And if you close the door against peaceful solutions, you should expect violence as an alternative."

No one had claimed responsibility for Friday's bombings by the end of the night. But the explosions occurred just hours after a young Islamist militant group that has claimed responsibility for many recent attacks, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, warned Egyptian security officers in a video message to "escape with your weapons" because "we will target you as we target your leaders."

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis often quotes the leaders of al-Qaida in video messages. Those al-Qaida leaders, in turn, drew their inspiration from an ideology forged in Egyptian jails under previous crackdowns on Islamists by Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak. If the group is responsible, then a militant strand of Islamist radicalism will have come full circle.

Although commentators on state television and demonstrators at the scene immediately blamed the Muslim Brotherhood, the group said in a statement that it "strongly condemns the cowardly bombings in Cairo, expresses condolences to the families of those killed" and "demands swift investigations." It blamed the "coup authorities" for deteriorating security, including the failure to apprehend the perpetrators of previous bombings.

Security forces around the capital had been on high alert even before the bombings in anticipation of the anniversary Saturday. The police had already cut off train access from southern Egypt, where support for the Islamists is strong. Each night this week security forces have set up heavily armed checkpoints around the city, although they apparently did little to stop the bombers.
