No threats in Egypt to justify security warnings: official

There is no information or evidence of any current security threats in Egypt to justify relevant circulated warnings, Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement Sunday.

The U.S. embassy in Egypt issued Friday a security message to American citizens in the Arab country, strongly advising them to avoid large gatherings in Cairo on Sunday due to "potential security concerns."

Some other embassies including the nearby British and Canadian ones issued similar warnings to their citizens in Cairo.

Meanwhile, Cairo has been seeing intense security deployment on Sunday with extra checkpoints and higher security alert all over the capital city.

"The measures taken by the security apparatuses are within the Interior Ministry's strategic plans that managed to maintain stability and security nationwide," said General Tarek Attiya, Assistant Interior Minister for Media and Relations, stressing the police preparedness to domestically secure the country.

On Friday, the Egyptian Interior Ministry said in a statement that it was "disturbed" by the security message issued by the U.S. embassy in Cairo.

"The embassy neither coordinated with the Foreign Ministry nor notified any other Egyptian authority of the reasons for issuing such an alert or the nature of these security concerns, which in turn raises questions about the reasons behind issuing the alert," said the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in the statement.

Egypt has been facing a growing wave of anti-government terrorist attacks since the military removed former Islamic president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. The police later launched a massive security crackdown on his loyalists, mostly from the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. Endit