- Local Name: كتائب حلوان
- Transliteration: Kata’eb Helwan
- Alternatives: N/a
- Status: 2014 – 2015 (Defeated)
- Conflicts: Islamist Political Violence in Egypt
The Helwan Brigades [KH; Kataeb Helwan] was a group of Muslim Brotherhood activists and supporters who had become disillusioned with the organization’s non-violent response to the Egyptian government’s crackdown.1 The main objective of the KH was to overthrow the regime of Abdelfattah el-Sisi by sowing chaos.2 It was based in the southern Cairene suburb of Helwan. The group also had a presence in nearby Aïn Shams and Matariya.3
The KH was made up of members of the Muslim Brotherhood and maintained close ties to certain elements within the movement. It had between 200 and 300 members. Many of these cadres received basic training in the hills surrounding Helwan.4 The KH was led by Magdi Fonia and exiled Brotherhood operative Ayman Ghani.5 Other Muslim Brotherhood elements provided financial support to the outfit.6 The KH’s arsenal consisted mainly of weapons that had been stolen during attacks on police stations by Brotherhood supporters in the summer of 2013.7 The group also maintained links to members of several ultra soccer fan groups.8
Historical Overview
The KH appears to have been set up in the spring of 2014 by local Muslim Brotherhood operative Magdi Fonia and his associates.9 It emerged out of an informal group of Brotherhood protesters who had armed themselves to protect their fellow demonstrators during confrontations with the security forces.10 The enterprise was supervised by exiled Muslim Brotherhood leader Ayman Ghani.11 The outfit immediately started recruiting associates.12
In the summer, KH militants began operations against the security forces. Members of the group attacked a traffic police post in Helwan on Jul. 03, 2014.13 On Aug. 14, KH operatives shot and killed a policeman as he left his home in Helwan.14 Later that day, the outfit formally announced its formation and expressed disillusionment with the Muslim Brotherhood’s non-violent approach in a video distributed on the internet.15 In the film, the KH also threatened continued attacks against the police.16 The message attracted considerable press attention and the Egyptian authorities immediately began to clamp down on the group. Dozens of its members, including key operatives such as Magdi Fonia, were arrested over the next weeks.17
The KH was weakened during this crackdown, but it nevertheless carried out dozens of small-scale attacks against the police in the summer, fall and winter of 2014. The group was also behind an arson attack on a public bus in the summer of 2014.18 KH operatives reportedly targeted the electricity infrastructure in Helwan during the wave of violence unleashed by Muslim Brotherhood supporters in the early months of 2015.19 In all, the KH was blamed for more than thirty attacks between the summer of 2014 and May 2015.20 Six policemen were killed in these incidents.21
Security forces continued to crack down on the KH and arrested many dozens of its cadres over the same period. In December 2014, the authorities arrested a KH operative as he was preparing to bomb a police station in Helwan.22 By early 2015, the authorities had rounded up more than 120 cadres of the outfit.23 In February, the government referred more than 200 members of the KH to court.24 The trial opened in late June 2016, but has been postponed several times since then.25 On Sep. 17, 2016, an imprisoned cadre of the KH escaped from custody as guards were bringing him to a hospital.26 On Aug. 28, 2017, at least seven other arrested members of the group fled from a police van as they were being brought back to prison following a hearing at a courthouse.27 Five of these elements were arrested shortly afterwards.28
By 2016, the KH had largely dissolved. Some of its remaining members went into hiding. On Jun. 06, 2016, three of these elements were killed when security forces raided their hideout in the Dumyat governorate.29 Most of the KH’s remnants linked up with other organizations however. A number of them joined the Salafis in the Reinforcements of Egypt [AM; Ajnad Misr].30 Other operatives further radicalized and eventually linked up with the DaIISh-affiliated jihadi cells operating in Greater Cairo. In May 2016, these elements killed eight policemen in an ambush on their vehicle in Helwan.31
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