Attempts to cut off Egypt's capital city (7)
I believe the answer is:
trieste
'city' is the definition.
(I have seen 'Italian city' mean 'trieste' so perhaps 'city' could also mean 'trieste')
'attempts to cut off egypt's capital' is the wordplay.
'attempts' becomes 'tries' ('try' can be a synonym of 'attempt').
'cut off' means to remove the last letter.
'capital' indicates taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'egypts' is 'e'.
'to' with its last letter taken off is 't'.
'tries'+'t'+'e'='TRIESTE'
(Other definitions for trieste that I've seen before include "One would have found a testier James Joyce there" , "Italy port, near Slovenia" , "NE Italy port" , "somewhere in Italy" , "Italian border city" .)