The Egyptian interior minister survived an assassination attempt unscathed on Thursday when a car bomb blew up his convoy and he said afterwards that a wave of terrorism by opponents of the military-installed government was just beginning.

The minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, had been involved in overseeing a violent crackdown on supporters of ousted President Muhammad Mursi.

Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood condemned it. But it showed the risk that Egypt’s political crisis could spawn a wave of attacks like those in the 1980s and 1990s.

“What happened today is not the end but the beginning,” Ibrahim said. The head of Cairo security, Osama Al-Saghir, said the ambush began seconds after Ibrahim left his house in the capital on his way to work.

A car driving ahead of the convoy exploded and the minister’s armored car also came under heavy gunfire, Saghir told the newspaper Al-Ahram.

“The driver of the car bomb met his end, and the investigators found the remains of another body that are being examined,” he said.

Senior Brotherhood leader Amr Darrag issued a statement on behalf of the Brotherhood-led Anti-Coup Alliance saying it strongly condemned the attack. Ibrahim said earlier this week he had been informed of plans to kill him and that “foreign elements” were involved. Armed forces chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi had supplied him with an armored car, he said.