241 Wilayat Sinai members added to terror list

CAIRO – 28 May 2018: A total of 241 defendants were added to the terrorist list in the case no.1000 for 2017, known as the “Wilayat Sinai case”.

The decree from Cairo Criminal Court was published in the Official Gazette on Sunday.

The prosecution had charged the suspects with joining a terrorist group established contrary to law, assaulting members of the Armed Forces and police, targeting state establishments, and possessing weapons and ammunition without a license.

The National Security sector revealed that the defendant, Ali Salem al-Dharz, was accused of restructuring Wilayat Sinai organization through recruiting new members and forming cells to implement his hostile plans that target the Armed Forces and the Security Forces especially in Northern Sinai and to incite chaos.

The investigations proved that Mousa Salman Eid Hassan, the leader of the organization, set plans to train the organization's members at their camps in Northern Sinai to carry out terrorist acts and manufacture explosives.

Additionally, two members of the cell, Abdullah Mohammed Ramadan and Mohammed Gamal, were set to implement suicide attacks that target the Armed Forces’ camps in Northern Sinai.

The attacks launched by the organization included setting an Armed Forces’ ambush on fire on April 1, 2017, where two conscripts were injured, killing a conscript at Sheikh Zuweid on April 14, 2017 and seizing an Armed Forces tank.

Wilayat Sinai (Sinai Province) is an offshoot of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, which emerged in North Sinai after the 2011 upheaval, but orchestrated major attacks following the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The government labeled the group a terrorist organization in April 2015, after it had already pledged allegiance to IS in November 2014.

Tarek al-Zumar, a leader of al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, was also added to the list. He was jailed from 1984 to 2011 for his involvementin the 1981 assassination of late President Anwar al-Sadat. He is believed to reside in Turkey.

Since the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3, 2013, Egypt has put a number of people on a proscribed terrorist list, because of their attempts to incite chaos across the country; the list was updated on March 6, 2018, and 319 new names were added.

Terror list

As part of Egypt’s efforts to fight terrorism, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi issued a new law in 2015 that gives a broad definition of terrorist entities and the sentences against them.

The law defines terrorist entities as a group or individuals that "through any means inside or outside the country, seek to call for the disabling of laws, or prevent state institutions or public authorities from functioning, or seek to attack the personal liberty of citizens, or other freedoms and rights granted to citizens by the law and constitution, or to harm national unity or social peace."

It also includes those who would commit attacks either inside or outside Egypt.

According to the law on terrorist entities (law No. 8/2015), the general prosecution shall create a proscribed terrorist list referred to by the Egyptian court, which has the final say as to individuals’/groups’designation as terrorists.

Egypt has designated the Muslim Brotherhood, the Sinai-based militant group AnsarBeit Al-Maqdis, the Islamic State group, Palestinian Hamas's military wing and Al-Qassam Brigades as terrorist groups due to their violent acts, their attempts to incite chaos throughout the country and destabilize Egypt, and for claiming responsibility for a number of deadly attacks on security forces.

Most of the group’s members and leaders are either in prisons or have fled the country.