State Department Says Muslim Brotherhood Terror Cell Hassm Threatens U.S. Embassy in Cairo

Patrick Poole | 9:31 PM on May 25, 2017

A terror cell affiliated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has issued a threat on its website directed at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo:

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A security alert published by the State Department was released yesterday about the threat made by Hassm (“Determination”):

Yesterday Hassm published a video called “Whizzing Bullets” on an attack on a police checkpoint earlier this month in Nasr City, in the Cairo area, which occurred while I was in Egypt reporting for PJ Media:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWaWcqpoDA4

The Nasr City attack happened just hours before I interviewed former top Egyptian counter-terrorism official Khaled Okasha, now the director of the National Center for Security Studies. The transcript was published in three parts here at PJ Media last week.

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In Part 1 of my interview with Okasha, he identified Hassm as part of the terror cell network established by Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau leader Mohamed Kamal:

How did Mohamed Kamal structure his terror cells, and what were some of the groups that were under his control?

The terror cells that are blatantly Brotherhood were formed after June 30 by Mohamed Kamal. It was a mix between the Gamaa Islamiya youth that were ready and trained to deal with a crisis like what happened on June 30 for the Islamists, and the other group of people he used were the Muslim Brotherhood youth. Some of those were at Rabaa and Nahda, while others were elsewhere, but they were shocked that they were ejected. They were not equipped, or they couldn’t form any sort of reaction to what happened, so he made his cells between those components, the Gamaa Islamiya and the Brotherhood youth.

He used them throughout 2013 and 2014, and the remnants of them are still active on the streets. Some of the groups were called Ajnad Misr, Helwan militias, Civil Resistance, another group called the Molotov Movement, another called Walaa, and then lately Hassm and Liwa al-Thawra.

Another very important component was the Hazemoon group, led by Hazem Salah Abu-Ismails, who was actually one of those political allies of the Brotherhood. He had a trained and armed group within his political group. The alliance between him and the Brotherhood started from 2011, and he was entrusted with sending the mujahedeen youth to Syria. So after June 30 Kamal used the Hazemoon group with the other two components to train and equip the Brotherhood youth who were not very familiar with the militant activity. That’s why in a matter of weeks you had active and operating terror cells all over Egypt. They were very focused on Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria.

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In Part 2 of my interview, Okasha stated that Hassm was still under Muslim Brotherhood control after Mohamed Kamal’s death last October:

And so we have pretty good reason to believe that Hassm and Liwa al-Thawra are still operating at the direction and support of the Brotherhood?

Without any doubt, yes.

There is no doubt that Hassm and Liwa al-Thawra are serving the Muslim Brotherhood. They were created by Mohamed Kamal, not after Mohamed Kamal. They started their operations during Mohamed Kamal’s time.

Second, all their operations, all the attacks they conducted were very serving to the Brotherhood and falls within their best interests. For example, when the Brotherhood cases were being discussed in courts, they attacked the judges that were hearing the cases of the Brotherhood. All of the videos that they have on the internet talking about Mohamed Morsi and using the same Brotherhood rhetoric about fighting the regime, so there’s no doubt that these guys belong to and serve the Brotherhood.

 I reported on Kamal’s death at the time here at PJ Media:

Hassm’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood have not exactly been a secret:

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https://twitter.com/AlBawabaEG/status/832556774137929728

Even al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) admits that Hassm is part of the “armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood”:

https://twitter.com/Mokhtar_Awad/status/821535984336728065

In February, George Washington University Project on Extremism Research Fellow Mohktar Awad noted that a senior Hassm leader killed by Egyptian security forces was eulogized as a martyr on the official Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party site:

An examination of the social media posts of the Hassm leader showed explicit support for the Muslim Brotherhood, leading to the “likelihood of being a member of that organization beyond the first tier.”

His posts promoted historical Muslim Brotherhood figures, noting: “[T]hose are our leaders.”

After Hassm attempted to assassinate an assistant prosecutor general last October, Awad noted that the terror group’s first claimed successful assassinations last July was the chief investigator in Tamya who had been notorious for cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood in Fayoum.

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As noted by Mada Masr, over the past year Hassm has claimed several prominent attacks:

The Hassm movement, which emerged in the summer of 2016, has recently carried out a string of armed operations, including the December bombing attack on Haram Street, a route which leads to the Giza Pyramids. Six police personnel were killed in the attack, while three other police officers stationed at a checkpoint were injured.

Hassm’s first operation resulted in the death of Mahmoud Abdel Hameed, the head of investigations in the Fayoum Governorate’s Tamya district.

The group has also claimed responsibility for the attempted assassination of former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa outside his home in the Cairo suburb of 6th of October City. In early September 2016, the group published photos of what it claims were explosives planted by the Police Club in the Nile Delta governorate of Damietta.

Hassm also claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt on Deputy Prosecutor General Zakaria Abdel Aziz in New Cairo in August, along with an assassination attempt on judge Ahmed Aboul Fotouh outside his home in the Nasr City district of Cairo in November, 2016.

I’ve been reporting here at PJ Media on the direct terror activity of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere:

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A threat made by a Muslim Brotherhood terror cell against the U.S. Embassy directly undercuts much of the criticism of the efforts for the U.S. to designate the Muslim Brotherhood:

A successful attack by the Muslim Brotherhood against the U.S. Embassy would expose much of the discussion by D.C. think-tanks and the establishment media as fraudulent and dangerous obstruction. Will there be action now — or will we allow the obstruction to continue as American lives are threatened?

Patrick Poole
For media inquiries, please contact [email protected]

Patrick Poole is a national security and terrorism correspondent for PJMedia. Follow him on Twitter.
Category: HOMELAND SECURITY
Tags: HOMELAND SECURITY

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