CAIRO // An Islamist militant group behind a wave of attacks is a grave threat to Egypt’s stability amid political turmoil triggered by the removal of the Islamist president, analysts say.
In less than two weeks, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, or Defenders of Jerusalem, has claimed responsibility for several high-profile attacks.
These include a car bombing at police headquarters in Cairo, shooting down a military helicopter with a missile and assassinating a police general in daylight in the capital.
“Vengeance is coming,” the Sinai-based group warned the army chief, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah El Sisi, who is expected to stand for the presidency after he removed Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, after days of protests calling for the Islamist to step down.
The group’s attacks have “made Egyptian authorities look like they were chasing ghosts”, said David Barnett, a research associate at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a US-based think tank.
“It is the main militant group that has the potential to escalate the destabilisation in the country.”
Analysts say Ansar Beit Al Maqdis is inspired by Al Qaeda.
But Egyptian security officials claim the “terrorist group is derived” from Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, which won all elections held after the 2011 ousting of Hosni Mubarak.
Ansar Beit Al Maqdis is thought to have been founded primarily by Egyptians in 2011 after the anti-Mubarak revolt, with most of its fighters drawn from Sinai tribes.
In recent months the group has also seen support coming from the Nile Delta and some areas of Cairo.
Although its overall command structure and source of funding are unknown, two of its known leaders are Shadi El Menei, who has eluded arrest so far and is from Sinai’s Sawarka tribe, and Abu Osama El Masry, of whom little is known.
The group is also believed to be led or backed by militants who broke out of prison in 2011 during the anti-Mubarak revolt.
“Its links with Al Qaeda are tenuous at best,” said Mr Barnett. The group’s videos often feature clips of Al Qaeda’s Egypt-born leader Ayman Al Zawahiri.
The group’s “early goal was to attack Israel and prevent cooperation between Egypt and Israel by sabotaging gas pipelines”, said France-based Matthieu Guidere, an expert on Islamist militants.
* Agence France-Presse
