From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Egypt’s Sissi wants Libya to hand over captured jihadist
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleCAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s president says he wants a prominent jihadist captured in Libya this week extradited so that he can be “held accountable.”
Thursday’s comments by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi are the first official word in Egypt on the capture of Hisham el-Ashmawi by a self-styled Libyan military force allied with Egypt.
El-Ashmawi was captured in the city of Derna, a longtime militant bastion. He is the prime suspect in a series of high-profile terror attacks in Egypt, including a 2013 attempted assassination of Egypt’s interior minister at the time.
El-Sissi says: “We want him so we can hold him accountable.”
Libya’s chaos has enabled the rise of Islamic militants. A 2015 audio recording attributed el-Ashmawi has him proclaiming allegiance to the Islamic State group’s rival, al-Qaeda, led by Egyptian jihadist Ayman al-Zawahri.
— AP
The Times of Israel Community.