Cairo, Jan 29 (IANS/AKI) The Sinai-based militant group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis has claimed Tuesday’s assassination in Giza of an aide to Egypt’s Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, according to Al-Ahram Online.
Besides shooting dead Mohamed Said, head of the minister’s technical office, the group also claimed the multiple bombings of a gas pipeline in North Sinai between Egypt, Jordan and Israel, vowing to escalate their “economic warfare” against the military-backed government.
Meanwhile, an army spokesperson blamed the murder on the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, to which Egypt’s deposed president Mohammed Morsi belongs, which was labelled a terrorist organisation in late December 2013.
Army spokesperson Ahmed Ali also blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for a separate attack Tuesday on a church in 6th of October City in Giza Governorate in Greater Cairo, in which one person died, Al-Ahram reported.
Said was killed by two gunmen aboard a motorbike as he left his home early Tuesday in Giza’s Haram district.
Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem) is an ideological offshoot of Al Qaeda, which has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in Egypt since Morsi’s ouster by the military last year.
The group claimed a failed attempt on Ibrahim’s life last September and death threats issued against defence minister and armed forces chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and their aides, according to Al-Ahram.
It has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks by Islamist militants in Egypt since Morsi’s ouster, especially in Cairo, the Nile Delta and the Sinai Peninsula.
–IANS/WAM
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