CAIRO, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- A captured Libyan terrorist was involved in the recent anti-police deadly attack in a desert area on the outskirts of Giza province, southern the capital Cairo, the Egyptian Interior Ministry revealed in a statement on Thursday.
The statement said that the Libyan militant was the only one who survived security raids after the deadly two-day confrontations that started on Oct. 20 and left 16 policemen dead and 13 wounded, besides one kidnapped but was freed later by the forces.
The later security crackdown on the nearby mountainous areas around the Western Desert near Al-Wahat highway left 15 militants dead and finally caught the Libyan runaway alive.
"The man was caught and we found out he is Libyan and his name is Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Abdullah al-Mismary, who lived in Derna city in Libya," said the police statement.
Mismary, 25, formed a terrorist cell in Libya's Derna and sought to establish a training camp for the militants in the desert area near the outskirts of Egypt's Giza, where his fellows were killed and he was caught alive by the forces, said the statement.
"The elements of this terror cell managed to recruit 29 people from the provinces of Giza and Qalioubiya who believe in extremist thoughts, to engage some of them in the cell and assign the others with logistic transmission and support," said the police statement, noting they have been located, pursued and caught.
"During the security raid launched on October 31 by the police in cooperation with the armed forces, a large number of various weapons and ammunition were seized, including anti-aircraft gun, multi-function weapon for armored vehicles, RPG shells, machine guns, cartouche guns, pistols and F1 bombs," it added.
Investigations revealed that Mismary's militants were the ones who shot dead in late May at least 30 Copts heading to visit a monastery on the desert highway in Upper Egypt's Minya province.
The terror operation was then claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi announced on Nov. 8, during the week-long World Youth Forum held in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, that a foreign fighter was caught alive among the terrorist group involved in the recent anti-police attack.
Egypt has been suffering a wave of bloody insurgency that killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the military toppled former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 in response to mass protests against his one-year rule and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group.
The country is concerned about its 1,200 km western border with eastern Libya that has been a smuggling destination of arms and militants over the past few years.
Egypt's Western Desert also witnessed a terrorist attack that killed at least 21 soldiers in July 2014. In February 2015, IS militants released a video allegedly showing the beheading of 20 Egyptians near the Libyan chaotic city of Sirte.
The country has been working with Libya's neighboring states, including Tunisia and Algeria, to reach a political settlement in Libya, which is torn by a civil war and run by two rival administrations, one in the capital Tripoli northwestern the country and the other in Tobruk city in the northeast.
Egypt sees Libya's stability necessary for maintaining its own national security in order to protect its western border and uproot the cross-border terrorism.
Terror attacks in Egypt have been centered in restive North Sinai province bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, before spreading nationwide and targeting the Coptic minority as well, with most of them claimed by the IS affiliate group in Egypt.
The Egyptian military and police have killed hundreds of militants and arrested a similar number of suspects as part of the country's anti-terror war declared by President Sisi, the army chief then, following Morsi's removal.
