High-profile militant executed

EGYPT executed one of its most high-profile militant leaders yesterday, the military said, after his conviction for his role in planning scores of deadly attacks against the country’s security forces.

Hisham el-Ashmawi, a former Egyptian special forces officer turned Islamic militant, was sentenced to death by a military court in November in two separate cases for his participation in militant attacks. On Monday, a civilian court also sentenced him to death, along with 36 other militants, on terror-related charges.

Colonel Tamer el-Rifai, a military spokesperson, said on his Facebook page that Ashmawi was hanged yesterday. He said Ashmawi was convicted for 14 crimes including a 2014 ambush that killed 22 Egyptian military border guards near the border with Libya, and a 2013 assassination attempt against the interior minister at the time, Mohammed Ibrahim.

Ashmawi was captured in October 2018 in the Libyan city of Derna, a long-time bastion of Islamic militants, by the forces of Libyan commander Khalifa Hifter, an Egyptian ally. He was handed over to Egypt in March.

The militant leader had been a valuable target for Egyptian security forces eager to obtain valuable intelligence for its years-long fight against militants.

Ashmawi helped found Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a jihadi organisation based in Egypt’s northern Sinai province that has seen an insurgency waged there for years. His military expertise – he left the Egyptian army in 2011 – transformed the tiny group into a well-organised guerrilla band that later inflicted painful blows on security forces in Sinai.

Beit al-Maqdis swore allegiance to the extremist Islamic State (IS) group in November 2014, but Ashmawi did not declare his allegiance to IS.

In an audio recording released in 2015 that is believed to be authentic, Ashmawi allied himself with IS’s rival, al-Qaeda, led by Egyptian militant Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Egypt has granted police forces and courts sweeping powers in response to Islamic militant attacks.

Human rights observers say the crackdown has resulted in an abandonment of due process and violations of international law.