Highlight
The Egyptian government announced on Monday 9th November the killing of a senior Islamic State commander during a shootout with police in the Capital Cairo.
Summary
Ashraf Ali Hassanein al Gharabli was the senior commader of the Islamic State Sinai Province.
The Egyptian interior ministry announced Monday that police managed to kill al Gharabli in the Egyptian capital Cairo during a heavy exchange between the militants and police.
Al Gharabli has been involved in a number of attacks and terrorist activities including the following
- The July 11, 2015 car bombing outside the Italian consulate in Cairo which destroyed the building completely and injured several Egyptian policemen.
- The early August, 2015 beheading of a Croatian man
- The August 6, 2014 murder of an American man named William Henderson
- The 2013 assassination attempt on former interior minister Mohammad Ibrahim
- Past involvement in a once-powerful Nile Valley cell
The latest likely possibility is al Gharabli’s role in the downing of a Russian airliner on 31st October, 2015, in which all 224 passengers on board were killed.
Early November 2015, the Islamic State’s Aleppo “province” released a video congratulating militants in the Sinai “province” for downing the Russian airliner.
The killing of al Gharabli is a major blow to the Islamic State Sinai Province considering the manner of brutalities he was capable of. He was one of the initiators of the IS Sinai Province.
The killing waters away the militants’ claim of successes as it does a heavy blow within its ranks.
