Egyptian armed group Ansar denies 'leader' slain

Egyptian armed group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis denied on Sunday that its leader has been killed, after security sources said the group's commander Shadi al-Menei had been shot dead in an ambush on 23 May.

The group also denied Menei was its leader, in a statement published on Internet forums accompanied by a picture of him reading a report about his "death" on a laptop. The picture could not be immediately authenticated.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), based in the Sinai Peninsula, has spearheaded attacks that have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since July 2013 when a military coup removed the country’s first elected civilian president Mohamed Morsi from power.

"As the military suffers losses in its ranks, it claims illusory great victories," the statement said. "They announced that they killed Shadi al-Menei and that he was the emir (leader) of the group. He was neither killed nor was the emir."

In the past, the group has announced the deaths of its operatives and senior commanders, sometimes even before the authorities did. It said in the statement the authorities have not managed to identify its leader, who the group said "is safe".

Locals told Middle East Eye via phone that they were sceptical of the government’s announcement on Friday saying they had killed Menei, citing contradictory statements by authorities.

The Egyptian army has poured troops and armour into the restive peninsula, with the stated aim of reducing violence, although an exclusive MEE report revealed up to 300 people, mostly civilians, have died in the counter-insurgency campaign there.

Attacks on state institutions have spread from the Sinai, with militants bombing security headquarters in Cairo and the Nile Delta city of Mansoura. While attacks have fallen since a peak in late 2013 and early 2014, violence is still commonplace with the most recent bombing on 21 May injuring nine people in the town of al-Arish in the Sinai.