CAIRO, July 12 (UPI) -- Islamic State militants have claimed responsibility for Saturday's car bomb attack against the Italian consulate in Cairo, Egypt, according to reports.
The militants also said in tweet that Muslims should stay away from locations such as the consulate, which they said were legitimate targets, according to the BBC.
One person died in the blast and at least seven others, including police officers and three passersby from the same family, were injured when a bomb placed underneath a deserted car exploded near the consulate.
Following the attack, Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab described his country as being "at war," according to the BBC.
None of the victims were Italian, according to Paolo Gentiloni, Italy's foreign minister.
Islamic State cells have in the past claimed responsibility for attacks against empty diplomatic missions in neighboring Libya, including a drive-by shooting in April that killed two people at the abandoned South Korean embassy, a bombing in February that produced no casualties at the empty Iranian embassy, and blasts that wounded three people at the abandoned Algerian embassy, all located in Tripoli.
It also claimed credit for a car bombing in April that reportedly killed three people and wounded five, including an American, at a U.S. consulate in Erbil, Iraq.
The Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim extremist group based primarily out of Syria and Iraq, declared a caliphate in captured lands last year and has since accepted pledges of allegiance from several umbrella groups in multiple countries, including Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Yemen, Libya and Egypt.
Libya's Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam, or "The Islamic Youth Shura Council," which had formed in April 2014, declared allegiance to IS and seized the city of Derna on Libya's northeastern Mediterranean coast in November, saying it was now a part of the IS caliphate. The affiliate posted a video of militants beheading Coptic Christians from neighboring Egypt in February.
On Nov. 10, Egyptian Islamist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, based in the Sinai Peninsula, pledged loyalty to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an audio message on Twitter.
About 600 Egyptian security personnel have been killed in militant attacks since the ousting of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in 2013, including an estimated 60 Egyptian soldiers who died during a wave of attacks against military checkpoints in Sinai earlier this month.
