Militant suspect wanted by Egypt nabbed in Libya

BENGHAZI: Eastern Libyan forces on Monday captured a former Egyptian special forces officer wanted by Cairo for suspected militant activities, a Libyan military spokesman said.

Hisham al-ashmawy, one of Egypt’s most wanted men, was apprehended in Derna where eastern Libyan forces are fighting militants, said Ahmed Mismari, spokesman of the Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls Libya’s east.

Ashmawy will be probably handed over to neighbouring Egypt after Libyan security officials have completed an investigation, he added.

Egyptian authorities say Ashmawy heads the Ansar alIslam network, which claimed responsibility for a deadly desert ambush against Egyptian police last October.

Egyptian officials also accuse the network, which they link to Alqaeda, of an assassination attempt on a former interior minister in 2013.

Ashmawy’s network has mounted a recruiting campaign among former officers in recent years and is seen as more dangerous than militants operating in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, according to Egyptian intelligence and security sources.

In another development, Egyptian security forces killed 52 suspected militants in North Sinai, the military said in a statement on Monday.

Security forces launched a largescale operation in February to crush militants who have waged an insurgency that has killed hundreds of security forces and residents over many years.

Their deaths bring the total of suspected militants killed since the beginning of the operation to at least 509.

The statement described those killed as “very dangerous” and said they were in possession of automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades and a drone.