Four small bombs exploded in Cairo underground stations yesterday, causing widespread panic in the first attacks in the capital of Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi’s presidency.

Authorities immediate pinned the blame for the attacks, which wounded three, on the Muslim Brotherhood.

They were “desperate attempts” to disrupt the “prevailing state of stability,” said authorities — though the Brotherhood denied any involvement in violence.

Three of the blasts, caused by homemade explosive devices, went off in separate stations in central and northern Cairo, and the fourth was a bomb that had been planted under a car outside a courthouse in the posh Heliopolis district, Interior Ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif said.

He said sniffer dogs found other bombs, which were defused by experts after the stations were cordoned off.

Mr Abdel-Latif called the attacks a “desperate attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist organisation to prove they still exist.”

No-one had claimed responsibility for the blasts when the Morning Star went to press, though even Islamists have suggested that young Brotherhood supporters, denied a political voice by the ongoing military crackdown, could turn to violence.

As commander of the armed forces, then general Sissi removed Brotherhood-linked president Mohammed Morsi from power following huge popular protests.

But international rights organisations and erstwhile Morsi opponents have raised concerns over the harshness of the crackdown on the Brotherhood.

Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been killed and thousands arrested.

Meanwhile most militant attacks in the troubled Sinai peninsula have been claimed by al-Qaida-inspired Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.