CAIRO (Agencies)

A man threw a primitive explosive device at a Cairo synagogue on Sunday but it burst into flames without causing injuries, the Interior Ministry said.

The man threw the device, a suitcase filled with petrol cans at 6.15 a.m. (04:15 GMT), after checking into a hotel across the street from the synagogue on a busy Cairo thoroughfare, a ministry statement said. He immediately fled the scene.

	There were no tour groups visiting the synagogue when the incident happened. There were no casualties or damage
An Egyptian official

"There were no tour groups visiting the synagogue when the incident happened. There were no casualties or damage, " an official said, adding that police were searching for the assailant.

More police than usual were outside the building after the incident but morning traffic was flowing as normal a few hours later, a Reuters witness said.

State television showed images of small white patches on the ground near the synagogue which it said were caused when the suitcase, containing sulphuric acid, cotton, matches and a lighter, burst into flames.

There were no obvious signs of other damage at the scene.

The ministry said the man was being pursued after the remains of clothing from the suitcase were found. A security source identified the man as an Egyptian in his mid-30s.

There is always a heavy police presence outside the synagogue.

Egypt, the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, has been rounding up youths accused of links to Islamist groups in the past few months. Political analysts say this reflects a growing suspicion that militant groups are wooing recruits to carry out attacks.

A bomb in a busy Cairo tourist area in February 2009 killed a French tourist. That was the first fatal attack against tourists in Egypt since bombs killed at least 23 people at a resort in the Sinai peninsula in 2006.

Analysts say they expect isolated incidents but see no signs of a return of insurgency on the scale of the 1990s, when security forces fought gun battles to quash an organized Islamist rebellion.

Egypt was once home to tens of thousands of Jews, but most left decades ago and only a few dozen live in the Arab state.