A pickup truck with a driver and a passenger pulled up to the large police building and detonated its explosives “within seconds,” Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said.
It was unclear how the truck circumvented a series of police checkpoints around the heavily guarded facility. Mr. Ibrahim, who was the target of an apparent assassination attempt in September, said at least three of the dead were police personnel and that the injuries appeared “minor.”
The force of the blast heavily damaged both the police building and the adjacent Museum of Islamic Art, destroying some artifacts, officials said.
There was no claim of responsibility.
At the site of the downtown Cairo bombing, large crowds gathered and called for the execution of jailed members of the Muslim Brotherhood, underscoring distrust of the group by segments of the population that supported the ouster of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, in July.
A second bomb exploded near police vehicles close to a Cairo metro station, killing one person and injuring 11 others, state media reported. Officials said the “crude” device had been thrown toward the police vehicles.
A third “improvised” explosive was detonated near a police station close to the Giza Pyramids, state television said. There were no injuries.
In the fourth bombing, a roadside explosive killed a policeman and wounded four others on Haram Street, an avenue leading to the Giza Pyramids, the Associated press reported.
Friday’s explosions come a day before the third anniversary of the start of the popular uprising that toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak.
Mr. Mubarak’s fall in 2011 led to a period of turbulent military rule before Egyptians elected Mr. Morsi, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, in June 2012. Mr. Morsi was ousted on July 3, leading to another outbreak of violence as security forces cracked down on thousands of his supporters.
More than 1,000 people have been killed by police during demonstrations, and Mr. Morsi and thousands of Brotherhood leaders and members have been arrested on charges ranging from unauthorized protests to espionage.
Mr. Morsi’s removal also set off a series of attacks on police and military targets. At first the attacks were mostly confined to the restive North Sinai region but they have recently encroached on the nation’s center.
After a large bomb killed 16 police officers in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura in December, the government designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, exposing its members and supporters to harsh prison terms under antiterrorism laws. Rights organizations have criticized the terrorist designation as politically motivated, meant to justify the severe crackdown on the Brotherhood, Egypt’s oldest and largest opposition group.
The Brotherhood has condemned acts of terrorism, and the government has offered no evidence of its involvement in the attacks. An al Qaeda-linked group, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, has claimed responsibility for most of them, including the Mansoura bombing.
Once thought of as an occasion to celebrate Egypt’s revolutionary forces, Jan. 25 has been recast by the military-backed interim regime as a day to hail the police and military—angering many Islamist and secular activists who launched the revolt three years ago.
It has also been designated as a day for supporters of Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the wildly popular defense minister and architect of the coup, to demand he run for president in elections this year.
Mr. Ibrahim, the interior minister, toured the blast site in downtown Cairo early Friday and said celebrations would continue as planned.
“This is all meant to terrorize citizens,” he said of the bombing. “But I anticipate this will only make them insist on coming out in the millions. We will secure Tahrir and all the squares as planned, people shouldn’t be afraid and people should come out.”
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