Egypt Executes Terrorist Hisham Ashmawy

Egypt on Monday executed Hisham al-Ashmawy, the country’s most dangerous extremist militant, after he was convicted of terrorism by a military court.

He was accused of orchestrating several attacks.

Ashmawy was returned to Cairo in May last year after his capture in 2018 by the Libyan National Army (LNA) in the city of Derna, eastern Libya.

He was convicted on several charges including plotting a 2014 attack that killed 22 military guards near the frontier with Libya, and involvement in an attempt to kill a former interior minister in 2013, a military statement said.

The former special forces officer, who is in his 40s, was dismissed in 2012 over his radical views.

He joined Ansar Beit al-Maqdis based in the restive Sinai of eastern Egypt but broke off after the group pledged allegiance to the ISIS group in November 2014.

Known by his nom de guerre “Abu Omar al-Muhajir”, Ashmawy announced the formation of an al-Qaeda-aligned group, Al-Mourabitoun in Libya, in July 2015.