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Thursday, April 28, 2016
ISIL Expands Throughout Egypt

ISIL Expands Throughout Egypt
WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S. military has determined that Islamic State of
Iraq and Levant was expanding throughout Egypt.
A U.S. Army report said ISIL has moved from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to
Cairo, Western Desert and Upper Egypt. The report said ISIL was trying to
link the Sinai theater with Libya, with a more than 1,000-kilometer border
with Egypt.
"The Islamic State has struggled to execute this strategy, yielding
mixed results with no shortage of spectacular failures," the report, titled
"The Islamic State's Pyramid Scheme, said. "The lack of abundant local
resources and experienced recruits in the Nile Valley, along with the
relative strength of the Egyptian security services, has hindered the
group's designs. Nevertheless, if its strategy succeeds, the results could
be devastating for Egypt's security, economy, and for the region."
The April 2016 report by the army's Combating Terrorism Center said ISIL
has been operating in Egypt for 18 months. The report, based on Egyptian
security investigations, said ISIL was using its presence in Egypt to target
Western interests as well as consolidate control over the Nile Valley. In
September 2015, Egypt reported an ISIL cell in the Giza province.
"The group has also killed far greater numbers of local Sinai civilians
in 2015 than previous years, for the first time targeting them with Islamic
State-like abandon, risking a backlash from local tribes," the report said.
"Killing civilians in the mainland and harming the economy and livelihoods
by attacks on tourism may also trigger a backlash from potentially
supportive constituencies."
The report identified Ashraf Al Gharably as the architect of ISIL
operations in Egypt in 2015. Another key figure was Hisham Ashmawy, a former
Egyptian SOF officer who would later command Al Murabitoun, an Al Qaida
affiliate. The two men were said to have coopted a range of Al Qaida-aligned
militias.
"Al Gharably was planning what he had hoped would be a spectacular
comeback to be unleashed in a dizzying succession of attacks last summer to
destabilize Egypt significantly," the report said.
The report, authored by research fellow Mokhtar Awad, said ISIL, which
merged with Ansar Beit Maqdis in 2014, was using foreign fighters for
operations in Egypt. In June 2015, Al Gharably sent three operatives to blow
up a temple in Luxor, but the attack was foiled.
"As Al Gharably's network suffered these setbacks, new cells made up of
fresh Islamic State recruits whose loyalty is only to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi
rose in their stead," the report said. "They have shown a greater ambition
to wage armed insurgency near Cairo and start to link the Western Desert
with the capital and beyond, yet suffer from lack of experience and
capability because of the decapitation of many of the former ABM Nile Valley
operatives like Al Gharably."

http://www.menewsline.com/article-1173,36910-ISIL-Expands-Throughout-Egypt.aspx

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