The Libyan National Army has caught Egyptian terrorist Muhmmad Muhammad al-Sayed, known as Muhammad al-Senbekhti or Abu-Khaled Mounir. Libyan Army Spokesman, Major General Ahmed al-Mesmari said that Senbekhti, who he said was notorious as an extremely dangerous terrorist element, was caught in Tripoli and deported to Benghazi.
A recent report by the Egyptian NGO Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights that Senbekhti was fighting among the troops supported by Turkey and Qatar in Libya, considered the major champions of Islamist Daesh-affiliated jihadi militias in Libya.
Senbekhti, the report said, was the right arm of Egyptian Most wanted Islamist terrorist Hisham al-Ashmawi, and was the mastermind behind the church suicide bombings that took place in Egypt in 2016 and 2017, and participated in the attack against Coptic pilgrims to the monastery of St Samuel the Confessor In 2017.
Ashmawi had been caught in Derna, Libya in 2018, and extradited to Egypt where he was put on trial for a number of major terrorist charges. He was sentenced to death and executed in March 2020.
The Libyan spokesman confirmed that Libyan army had been trailing Senbekhti since 2019, till they finally caught him. The Egyptian authorities, he said, would be notified of the unfolding investigations, and it would be accordingly discussed whether Senbekhti would be extradited to Egypt.
A suicide bombing had ripped through Boutrossiya Church in Cairo during Mass on Sunday 11 December 2016, claiming 28 lives. On 9 April 2017 which coincided with Palm Sunday, twin suicide bombings took place in the church of Mar-Girgis (St George) in the mid-Delta city of Tanta, and at the gate of St Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria. The blast in Tanta claimed 27 lives, and in Alexandria eight Copts and seven policemen.
Boutrossiya was restored by the Egyptian Armed Forces in time to celebrate New Year 2017 service and, eight months following the Tanta church suicide bombing, in December 2017, the Egyptian Armed Forces had reconstructed and renovated the church which Anba Pola, Bishop of Tanta, renamed the “Church of Mar-Girgis and the Martyrs”.
On 26 May 2017, 28 Copts were shot to death as the buses they boarded approached the desert monastery of St Samuel the Confessor, west of Minya, some 220km Southwest Cairo.
All these attacks against Copts were claimed by Daesh, also known as the Islamic State (IS). A number of the members of the Daesh cell responsible for the attacks were caught and put on trial; 17 were executed and 19 handed life sentences. Others, however, fled to Libya.
Watani International
30 April 2020
