Global media is reporting that Egypt has placed the blame for a recent car bombing in Cairo on the group known as HASM (Arms of Egypt,) which it says is a wing of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. According to a Reuter’s report:
CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt’s interior ministry said on Thursday it has identified the perpetrator behind a car bombing outside Cairo’s main cancer hospital this week that killed more than 20 and injured dozens. It also said security forces killed 17 suspected militants on Thursday morning during raids on their hideouts in three separate incidents in Helwan, Cairo and in the province of Fayoum, south of Cairo.The ministry said the bomber was a member of the militant group Hasm and identified him as fugitive 24-year-old Abdel Rahman Khaled Mahmoud Abdel Rahman.“This was confirmed following the DNA testing of the remains that were found at the site of the accident and based on the comparison with members of his family’s (DNA),” the statement said.On Monday, a car packed with explosives was driving against traffic and blew up outside the hospital.It said the militants targeted on Thursday were members of “Hasm’s terrorist cluster cell.” Egypt accuses Hasm, which emerged in 2016 and has claimed several attacks, of being a wing of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement denies this and says it seeks change only through peaceful means.
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In January 2008, the US Treasury Department designated HASM as a terrorist group, albeit with a more limited assessment of the group’s links to the Muslim Brotherhood:
HASM is a terrorist group also active in Egypt. Formed in 2015, the group claimed responsibility for the assassination of Egyptian National Security Agency officer Ibrahim Azzazy, as well as the attempted assassination of Egypt’s former Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa. HASM also claimed responsibility for a September 30, 2017 attack on Myanmar’s embassy in Cairo. Some of the leaders of the violent splinter groups, Liwa al-Thawra and Hasm, were previously associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.