A member of the police special forces stands guard around the scene of a car bomb blast in front of The High Court in downtown Cairo, March 2, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Monday's Cairo attacks followed a string of similar low-level bombings in the capital on Thursday that killed one person. 

While most of the worst attacks in Egypt have hit the Sinai Peninsula, a remote but strategic region bordering Gaza that is a hotbed of Islamist militants, smaller blasts have become increasingly common in Cairo and other cities.

Egypt has been grappling with rising Islamist militancy since then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted freely elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Sisi, now president, has cracked down hard on Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, which the government has declared a terrorist group. The Brotherhood renounced violence as a means of political change decades ago and denies any link with recent militant attacks.

Monday's attack was not the first to target court buildings in Cairo. In October, a homemade bomb exploded near the same area, wounding 12 people.

Sisi signed off on an anti-terrorism law last week giving authorities sweeping powers to ban groups on charges ranging from harming national unity to disrupting public order.

Cairo is hoping security concerns will not detract from a high-profile investment conference it is hosting later this month in the Sinai Red Sea resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh.