Egypt Officials Confirm Alleged Assassin In Militant Video Was Ex-Army Major

The man Sinai militants claim was responsible for an attack on the interior minister in September was a former major in the Egyptian army, the interior ministry has confirmed.

Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis released a 30-minute video on militant websites on Saturday that identified former army major Waleed Badr as being responsible for the attack, but does not make it clear if he was a member of the group.

Ministry spokesman Abdel-Fatah Osman told privately-owned Dream TV on Saturday that Badr had indeed been a member of the armed forces, but he was “dismissed when [officials] learnt about his jihadist orientation.”

Investigators have not announced the identity of the alleged attackers, but this will take place soon, Osman said.

Ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif told Egyptian state TV on Saturday that the video “does not add a lot to the interior ministry’s information.”

The ministry knew the perpetrators a week after the attack, but did not release the information so as not to influence official investigations, he added

On 5 September, a car bomb detonated near Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim’s convoy as he was leaving home in northeast Cairo, killing one person and injuring at least 20 others.

A few days later, Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis released an online statement claiming responsibility for the attack. It said it was able to “shatter the security organisation of the murderer Mohamed Ibrahim [the interior minister], through a martyrdom operation.”

Source : Ahram