Abu Jaafar al-Maqdesi, an ISIS affiliate leader in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, is dead, ISIS said this week.
The Associated Press reported on Sunday that Aamaq, ISIS’ news agency, claimed al-Maqdesi was killed earlier this month.
No other details of al-Maqdesi’s death were given.
Report: Islamic State group leader killed in Egypt’s Sinai https://t.co/R2JaWRGa6T
— FrontlineDefense (@DefenseJPC) July 24, 2018
Al-Maqdesi was a leader in the terrorist cell known as Wilayat Sinai, which declared allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014.
Wilayat Sinai claimed responsibility for destroying a Russian jetliner over the Sinai desert, which killed more than 200 people in 2015, the Associated Press said.
That same group also claimed responsibility for the 2017 bombings that targeted Coptic churches on Palm Sunday, killing or injuring more than 150 people, the AP reported.
At the beginning of 2018, Egypt launched 42,000 troops for “Operation Sinai 2018” against militants there, in parts of the Nile Delta and in the Western Desert that borders Libya.
Since then, more than 260 militants have been killed, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
