40 arrested in Sharqiya on charges of belonging to Islamic State

The authorities have arrested 40 people from the Nile Delta governorate of Sharqiya on charges of allegedly belonging to the Islamic State (IS), according to local media.

The defendants were reportedly referred to the Zagazig Criminal Court on Sunday, where they will stand trial before a special judicial circuit dealing with terrorism-related crimes, the state-owned newspaper Al-Akhbar reported. The newspaper claimed that all 40 suspects confessed to belonging to the IS and serving the organization abroad when they were interrogated by National Security Agency personnel, and then confessed again to prosecutors.

“These terrorists had returned to the country, formed clusters of cells across the governorate, possessed plans to terrorize citizens, to destabilize the country and weaken its security, and also to target police and the Armed Forces,” Al-Akhbar wrote.

The leader of this so-called terrorist cell confessed that he recruited youth from Sharqiya and trained them in using firearms and making bombs, Al-Akhbar claimed.

Al-Akhbar did not specify the number of defendants being charged with belonging to a terrorist organization. However, the privately owned newspaper Al-Wafd, and several other private news agencies, reported that only 20 are currently in detention, while 20 others had evaded arrest and would be tried in absentia.

Al-Akhbar claimed the suspects were fabricating counterfeit passports and national identification cards to help these youth travel to Iraq and Syria, but these fake IDs were reportedly not found by the authorities.

Police allegedly found only “reading materials promoting Takfiri-jihadi thought, computers and thousands of dollars’ worth of cash,” Al-Akhbar said. No bombs or other weapons were reported to have been found in the possession of these defendants.

Local and international human rights organizations have repeatedly criticized what they call the Egyptian security apparatuses’ systematic use of torture and duress to extract confessions from detainees.

On the other hand, security officials claim the IS is attempting to gain a foothold in Egypt, and poses a real threat to national security. They point to statements issued by the armed militant group Province of Sinai — previously known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdes — which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State last November in an audio recording the group posted online.

Numerous armed attacks have been attributed to the Province of Sinai, both in the embattled peninsula and in mainland Egypt.