Egypt arrests IS affiliate in Zaytoun district

CAIRO – 2 November 2017: Egyptian national security officers arrested a worker at a hospital in the vicinity of the Zaytoun district on charges of communicating with the Islamic State.

A report of the incident was registered and referred to the Public Prosecutor's Office of Investigation.

National security officers received information from secret sources claiming that a worker named Ahmed A. at a charity hospital in the Zaytoun district was communicating with a number of Islamic State leaders on social media networks, and that he had met some IS members in different places in Cairo.

Secret investigations proved that the information was true and the suspect was an IS affiliate. Immediately, the suspect was targeted by dispatched security forces. Ahmed was arrested, and the police recorded the incident, sent a copy to the assistant to the Egyptian minister of interior, and accordingly gave instructions to the public prosecution to proceed with the ongoing investigations.

According to the Ministry of Interior, earlier in October, Egyptian security forces arrested 12 suspected members of the Islamist Hasm Movement in the province of Fayoum, located 40 miles (60 km) south of Cairo.

The arrests come several days after a deadly shootout between security forces and terrorists in the Giza governorate, which claimed the lives of 52 Egyptian security personnel.