A top Cairo-based leader of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis was killed in an exchange of fire with the police in el-Marg area, northeast of Cairo, according to a Monday police statement.
Ashraf Ali al-Gharably was allegedly planning a “major terrorist operation” in the Central Military Region (CMR,) which includes Greater Cairo and small surrounding parts of the Delta, Upper Egypt and the Western Desert, the police stated.
Gharably was the group’s leader in the CMR and the Bahariya Oasis, the Interior Ministry statement said. Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis rebranded itself as Sinai Province after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in November 2014.
After detecting him, the police deployed several ambushes on his designated routes, and when the police forces approached him in his car, he shot at them, the statement said, adding that he was killed in the confrontation. No injuries among the police were reported.
The statement said that Gharably was one of those responsible for big operations, including a car bomb outside the Italian consulate in Cairo, killing U.S. oil worker William Henderson who was abducted in August 2014 and Croatian Tomislav Salopek who was abducted from Cairo and reportedly beheaded in August 2015.
