ISIS Claims Cairo Courthouse Bombing

The Islamic State franchise Sinai Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Cairo courthouse as the Egyptian government continues to grapple with an insurgency that has targeted the legal system, police, and military.

Reuters reports that 30 people were wounded in the attack, including 8 policemen. Sinai Peninsula said the bombing was retribution for the execution of six of its members who were found guilty of carrying out an attack north of Cairo last year. That incident left two soldiers dead.

The attack seems to have been a car bomb, and suggests that Sinai Peninsula is only getting more adept at using them. It was a car bomb that allowed the group to assassinate its highest profile target yet, the head prosecutor for the Egyptian government.

The insurgency fought by Sinai Peninsula and other groups has its origins in the overthrow of Egypt's first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, by dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The insurgency has been especially pronounced in the Sinai Peninsula which abuts Israel and has claimed the lives of hundreds of soldiers and police.

Despite a military crackdown, mass death sentences, and widespread arrests, the government has not been able to quell the insurgency. The insurgents are so powerful in the Sinai that the government has temporarily lost control of some towns and regions and had to use airstrikes on its own soil to regain control.

In its efforts to destroy the insurgency, the government has been accused of human rights violations including torture, rape, and indiscriminate killing. The military's efforts to regain control of Rabaa Square from peaceful protesters immediately after the overthrow of Morsi has been termed a crime against humanity by some rights groups. Nearly 800 people were killed in a matter of hours as the military swept into the square with guns and tanks.