Military courts to receive results of Wahat attack's investigation

CAIRO – 21 October 2018: Legal sources have revealed that the report on the results of the investigation of the terrorist attack in the Western Desert in October 2017 will be transferred to the military judiciary.

This report will include the results of the investigations with the defendants such as, security investigations about the defendants, their confessions and statements from witnesses.

Security investigations revealed that those defendants wanted to revive the armed actions through the formation of a new armed cells with several names most notably "Hasam and Lawaa El-Thawra”, in response to the arrest of outlawed Muslim Brotherhood leaders and members. They selected elements of the movements and had them undergone advanced military trainings inside and outside the country. The movement carried out terrorist operations inside Egypt in an attempt to overthrow the regime and the seizure of power, besides their operations abroad.

These terrorist cells have succeeded in forming a group of sub-cells that were supposed to carry out a number of terrorist operations targeting State’s institutions and citizens, such as the army, the police, the judiciary, and several Coptic churches.

The Interior Ministry released a statement immediately on which it announced that 16 security officers were killed during clashes with militants in Wahat in the Western Desert in the early hours of Saturday on October 20, which led to the killing of 15 militants.

The statement added that the Interior Ministry’s National Security Service received information about the location of dangerous militants taking shelter in the Western Desert’s kilo 135, and then a raid was ordered to be launched.

The statement concluded by asserting the Interior Ministry’s solidified determination to eradicate terrorism and dry out its breeding grounds and hotbeds.

Following the deadly clashes, some security sources pointed an accusing finger at Hisham Ashmawi, the operation commander of the Sinai-based Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (ABM), the country’s most active jihadist group.

Ashmawi or Abu Omar Al-Muhajir is a former officer in the Egyptian Commandos, who received advanced training on special operation tasks in main US training institutes. Now he has turned militant and became the operations engineer of ABM and in charge of the most important qualitative operations carried out in Sinai, Cairo and Al-Farafra oasis to deserve the title of the most dangerous wanted person in Egypt.

Hesham Ashmawy, was arrested on Monday, October 8 in Derna, Libya.