Ashraf al-Gharabli (Jihadi Militant, Egypt)

• Full name: Ashraf Ali Hassanein al-Gharabli
• Pseudonym: “Adham”
• Alternatives: Mohammed Hassanein al-Gharabli
• Location: N/a
• Affiliation: Islamic State in Egypt’ Gharabli Network, fmr Partisans of the Holy House [ABaM]

Ashraf al-Gharabli (°1984) was a influential jihadi from Giza. He joined the Partisans of the Holy House [ABaM; Ansar Bait al-Maqdis] in the aftermath of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Gharabli rose through the ranks and became acquainted with ABaM top leader Tawfiq Ziada.¹ He eventually served as an associate of Mohammed Afif and helped oversee the group’s activities in Greater Cairo.² Gharabli participated in the planning and execution of the September 2013 suicide car bomb attack that targeted the Egyptian interior minister in Qahira.³ He later also helped prepare the assassination of a police colonel in November 2013.⁴ By January 2014, Gharabli was declared wanted by the Egyptian authorities.⁵ Undeterred, he continued to plot attacks. Gharabli helped organize the Jan. 24, 2014 car bombing of a police station in Qahira in which four people were killed.⁶

In March 2014, Gharabli escaped arrest as security forces rolled up an ABaM cell based in the village of Arab Sharkas, in the Qalyubiya governorate.⁷ Afif was apprehended during the operation. The ABaM tasked Gharabli with reorganizing its cells in the capital.⁸

Later in 2014, Gharabli became the deputy of Hisham Ashmawi and helped coordinate the expansion of the ABaM’s operations into Egypt’ western desert regions.⁹ He was linked to the group’s July 2014 attack on a police post in Farafra which left 28 officers dead and the ambush of a police vehicle in the Matruh governorate in August.¹⁰ Gharabli was also suspected in the killing of an American oil worker later that month.¹¹

In late 2014, Gharabli became one of the few ABaM leaders outside the Sinai to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham]. He fell out with Ashmawi after the latter refused to renounce his loyalty to al-Qa’ida and left the ABaM with many of his followers.¹² Gharabli reorganized the remnants and transformed them into a branch of the DaIISh.¹³

In the spring of 2015, Gharabli tasked associate Tariq Abdul-Satter with launching attacks in Upper Egypt.¹⁴ He was suspected of having supervised Abdul-Satter’s preparations for the Jun. 10 foiled suicide bomb attack at an ancient temple complex near Uqsur.¹⁵

Gharabli activated his own network in the summer of 2015. He was involved in the planning and execution of its high-profile operations, including the Jul. 11 car bombing of the Italian consulate in Qahira and the August car bomb attack on the Qalyubiya provincial police headquarters in Shubra el-Kheima.¹⁶ Later that summer, Gharabli was reportedly involved in the abduction and subsequent beheading of a Croatian engineer in Giza.¹⁷

In September 2015, security forces launched a series of operations against Gharabli’s network in the western deserts and the Giza governorate. Much of the network was rolled up. Gharabli himself was eventually killed in a gun battle with policemen who intercepted his car in Qahira’s Marg neighborhood on Nov. 08, 2015.¹⁸