Egypt's Court for Urgent Matters has set 24 March as the date when it will determine if the Sinai-based militant group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis is a terrorist organization or not.Leading lawyer Ahmed Soliman had previously filed a lawsuit asking Interim President Adly Mansour and Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab to rule Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis as a terrorist group and ban all of its activities.
The lawsuit is in response to a string of deadly attacks against military and police officers for which the group has claimed responsibility following the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July.
On Saturday, the militant group announced that one of its founding members, Tawfiq Mohamed Freij, had been killed when a bomb he was carrying was set off in a car accident, according to a statement published by the Associated Press.
The statement referred to Freij as the mastermind behind recurrent attacks on an Egyptian-Israeli gas pipeline, which has been bombed at least five times since the beginning of this year.
Freij was also noted as being responsible for the failed assassination attempt on interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim in September.
The Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militant group claimed responsibility for the 24 December bombing of a security headquarters in Daqahliyagovernorate that killed 16 and injured 134. Following the attack, Egypt's interim government leveled accusations at the Muslim Brotherhood, deeming it a terrorist group, despite the Brotherhood condemning the bombing and denying responsibility.
Last week, the group released a Youtube video purporting to show its members roaming freely and establishing checkpoints in North Sinai, evidence that it says undercuts the Egyptian army's recent claims of success against militants in the region.
Since Morsi's ouster, Egypt's army has regularly claimed a successful crackdown on militants in the restive Sinai Peninsula, announcing the deaths of tens militants and the arrests of hundreds, in addition to the destruction of dozens of huts suspected to be owned by terrorist groups.
