Egypt’s interior minister escaped an assassination attempt yesterday when a suspected car bomb struck his convoy in a Cairo neighborhood, in the first attack on a senior government official since the country’s Islamist president was toppled in a coup two months ago.

Turkish army deployed additional troops and weapons along the Syrian border on Wednesday amid fears of a potential military intervention led by the United States. Reinforcements from Turkey’s military command in Gaziantep province

The number of the Syrians forced to leave their native country and seek shelter in refugee camps in Turkey has exceeded 200,000 people. Taking into account the people living outside these camps the figure is over half a million.