Security forces have arrested a journalist who they say filmed a video of an alleged anti-police armed group, state news agency MENA reported on Wednesday.
A high-profile security source said that Alyaa Awad, who is allegedly a photojournalist at Islamic-affiliated news portal Rassd, was arrested in Alexandria.
In August, the self-proclaimed militia appeared in a video published and circulated on social media networks in which they vowed to target all police facilities in Helwan, a southern suburb of Cairo. They called themselves "Kataeb Helwan" – Arabic for "Helwan Brigades".
The video showed a group of 12 men wearing masks and holding rifles. Some were waving the four-fingered sign associated with last August's violent dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in that was set-up to protest Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's ouster.
Several privately-owned Egyptian newspapers recently featured Awad with conflicting news about her affiliation – not only with the video but also with Rassd.
However, Rassd has not issued any official statement regarding the issue.
Egyptian police have already announced they have arrested several people who allegedly appeared in the controversial video.
Since the popular military-led ouster of Morsi last summer, a wave of militant attacks has swept the country. Assaults have primarily targeted security forces and have been claimed by a radical Islamist militia known as Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis. Smaller attacks were claimed by another group called Agnad Misr.
