By Marwa Awad /Reuters

CAIRO: Egypt’s foreign minister said Omar Suleiman, vice president under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, had survived an assassination attempt, state news agency MENA said, citing a television interview with the minister.

A senior Egyptian security source on Feb. 5 denied reports in U.S. media that there had been an assassination attempt.

But Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on satellite channel Al Hayat TV late on Wednesday that previous reports about Suleiman were correct. He said that he witnessed the shooting attack on Suleiman’s vehicle in an area near the presidential palace in Heliopolis in Cairo.

Aboul Gheit said the gunmen were inside a “stolen ambulance vehicle.” One of Suleiman’s bodyguards was killed, while another bodyguard and the driver were injured, MENA reported.