A bomb blast targeting a security chief in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria killed a policeman and wounded four others on Saturday — just two days before presidential elections.

The bomb attack struck the convoy of Alexandria's security chief General Mostafa al-Nimr. But al-Nimr, who was the intended target of bombing, according to police, escaped unharmed.

Al-Nimr was later seen on a local TV channel inspecting the site of the blast. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Probe ordered

Prosecutor General Nabil Sadek ordered an "urgent and wide inquiry."

The attack came just two days ahead of Egypt's presidential election, which President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is almost certain to win.

Sissi breezed to an election win in 2014, one year after leading a military coup that ousted the freely elected Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi. State security forces have cracked down on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood organization and have tried to stamp out attacks by jihadists — including those by Islamic State (IS) militants.

IS militants claimed responsibility for the 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner that killed all 224 people on board shortly after it took off from the resort town of Sharm-el Sheikh.

Egypt has been under a state of emergency since April 2017, when IS terrorists struck 

two Coptic Christian churches in Alexandria and Tanta on Palm Sunday. In November, after 300 worshippers were massacred in a Sinai mosque, Sissi gave security forces a three-month deadline to wipe out the jihadists. 

In a bid to contain terror attacks, the country has been mounting a massive security operation but the president's deadline has been extended, as security forces struggle to put an end to the five-year-old insurgency.

bik,ap/tj (Reuters, AP)

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