(CNN) -- Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed Egyptian vice president, recently escaped assassination, the host of a security conference in Germany said Saturday.
German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, the host of the Munich Security Conference, mentioned the development during a plenary session of the meeting and said that several people were killed.
Details about the incident, including when and where it happened, were not immediately known.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at the conference that the news of the assassination attempt reflects the challenges of restoring stability in Egypt.
The vice president, appointed last week amid widespread cries for President Hosni Mubarak's ouster, has been working to initiate a government transition, and Clinton said it's important to support the Suleiman-led process.
Suleiman had been an intelligence chief and a powerful behind-the-scenes player for a long time, and his appointment was seen widely as an attempt by Mubarak to restore order.
He is well-respected by the military and is credited with crushing an Islamic insurgency in the 1990s, for which he earned the ear of Western intelligence officials seeking vital information about regional terrorist groups.
If Suleiman's name is not well known, that is intentional. As head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate, known as the Mukhabarat, he has worked in the shadows of Mubarak's regime, earning him the nickname of "the secret minister."
Suleiman has been credited with saving Mubarak's life. On a state visit to Ethiopia in 1995, Mubarak was to have traveled in a normal vehicle but Suleiman insisted that the president's armored Mercedes be flown in from Cairo. Accounts of what happened in Ethiopia vary but it's believed that Suleiman was sitting next to Mubarak when a hail of bullets pinged off the car. The bond forged that day cemented their relationship.
Born in an impoverished area of southern Egypt in 1935, Suleiman chose the military as a career, according to a Foreign Policy magazine biography.
He rose through the ranks of the Egyptian infantry to become a lieutenant general. After his country allied itself with the United States, he attended the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in the 1980s, Foreign Policy reported.
He was tapped for Egypt's top intelligence post in 1993, at a time when the Arab world's most populous nation was wracked with terrorist attacks targeting tourists and essential infrastructure.
Defense and security analysis company IHS Jane's says Suleiman's interaction with the Israeli Mossad as well as the Central Intelligence Agency catapulted him to a central role in Egypt's security apparatus.
In 2001, he led Egyptian efforts to confront a Palestinian uprising next door. Later, he played a crucial role in the formation of a new Palestinian government headed by Mahmoud Abbas, according to Jane's.
CNN's Elise Labott contributed to this report.
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