Cairo suicide bomber identified as ex-army officer

Cairo (AFP) - Jihadists have released a video of a suicide bombing in which an ex-army major reveals himself as the attacker who tried to kill Egypt's interior minister in September.

A senior interior ministry official confirmed the bomber, Walid Badr, was a major in the military before his expulsion in 2005 for "extremist" views.

In the video posted on YouTube on Saturday by the Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, Badr can be seen explaining his motives before detonating a car bomb close to a convoy carrying Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim.

The revelation of Badr's army past comes at a time of heightened conflict between Islamists and the military, which overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July after mass protests demanding his resignation.

More than 1,000 people, mostly Islamists, have been killed and 2,000 arrested in an ensuing crackdown.

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