Cairo

Public Safety

Although Cairo is notorious for government corruption, it is known as a safe city with a much lower incidence of violent crime than most major Western cities. Petty theft—especially pick-pocketing—is known to occur, and in recent years there have been some reports of armed robbery and sales of hard drugs.

However, the major form of violence to which Cairo has been subjected is terrorism. In 1992 Islamic extremists began a campaign of terrorism aimed at overthrowing the secular government of President Hosni Mubarak. Within the first four years, 920 people had died, including 25 foreign visitors.

Terrorism persisted in the latter part of the 1990s in spite of a government crackdown on extremist groups.