Libyan amongst 12 Al-Qaeda suspects arrested in Cairo

By Ashraf Abdul Wahab.

Tripoli, 2 November:

Twelve militants with suspected links to Al-Qaeda have been arrested in Cairo, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

The men, one of whom was Libyan, were picked up having been monitored by security services for the past week. Three of those arrested were planning on crossing the border into Libya, officials in Cairo said.

“Egyptian police managed to arrest the militants and seized weapons and explosives in more than one area in Cairo”, the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement. “Three of those arrested were trying to cross the border into Libya”.

The ministry said that 83 explosive devices were discovered ready for detonation inside a car on a highway, as well as a grenade and more explosive materials in a separate vehicle on a road elsewhere.

The operation comes one week after Egyptian security forces raided an apartment in the Nasr City suburb of Cairo following intelligence that a suspect in the 11 September attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was living there.

The suspect, an Egyptian national named only as Hazem, was killed in a shootout with the forces sent to apprehend him. The man was said to have recently returned from Libya and was found in possession of large quantities of explosive materials and three automatic weapons.