Cairo: Local authorities in the Egyptian capital on Saturday requested stores and commercial institutions in the sprawling city to install surveillance cameras, in a move aimed at helping police identify perpetrators of terrorist attacks.
Cairo Governor Jalal Al Saeed said no commercial licence will be issued or renewed for any business in the city unless shops install surveillance cameras.
“This is aimed at fulfilling security and stability and assisting in eliminating terrorism,” Al Saeed added in a statement.
He added that road intersections in central Cairo are already monitored by surveillance cameras.
The decision comes two days after a car bombing at a police building in the working-class area of Shubra Al Khaima in north Cairo. Twenty-nine people, including 14 policemen, were injured in the attack claimed by the Daesh terror group.
In recent months, Cairo has seen an increase in militant attacks targeting security forces and civil facilities including banks.
Last month, a car bomb exploded outside the Italian consulate in central Cairo, killing one person. A Daesh affiliate claimed that attack.
In May, the government unveiled a plan to install surveillance cameras in major squares of the country as part of measures to counter an upsurge in terror attacks experienced by Egypt since the army’s 2013 overthrow of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
Last week, President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi ratified an anti-terror law, which sets out the death penalty for several offences including creating or leading a terrorist cell.
