Yehya Moussa Module (Ikhwani Entity, Egypt)

• Local Name: N/a
• Transliteration: N/a
• Alternatives: N/a
• Status: 2015 – 2016 Defeated
• Conflicts: Islamist Political Violence in Egypt

The Yehya Moussa Network [YMN] was a small and extremely secretive militant entity comprised of former Muslim Brotherhood members.¹ It sought to topple the Egyptian government by destabilizing the country through violence.² To maximize anonymity, it went unnamed and never engaged in public relations.³

Former Muslim Brotherhood activist Yehya Moussa formed the network somewhere in early 2015. From abroad, he organized Brotherhood supporters who had grown disaffected with the movement’s adherence to non-violence. Most of Moussa’s recruits were Muslim Brotherhood-aligned students and alumni of the Azhar University.⁴ Moussa had key members trained in weapons handling and bomb-making by cadres of the Islamic Resistance Movement [HAMAS; Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya] in the Gaza Strip.⁵ Many lower-ranking operatives were unwittingly drawn into the YMN. Apparently unaware of their exact affiliation, these elements usually assumed they belonged to factions aligned to Mohammed Kamal.⁶ By the summer of 2015, the network had a small core of key operatives and many dozens of peripheral associates.⁷

On Jun. 29, 2015 operatives of the YMN detonated an explosives-rigged car as the motorcade of Egypt’s top prosecutor Hisham Barakat passed by in the Heliopolis suburb of Qahira, killing the official and injuring several other people.⁸ The network did not claim responsibility for the attack and ignored the false assertions by other entities.⁹ Buoyed by the success of the operation, YMN associates started monitoring other targets, including Egyptian defense minister Sedki Sobhi and Israel’s ambassador Haim Koren.¹⁰

In November 2015, Egyptian security forces rounded up several members of an YMN cell in the Sharqiya governorate. The network wanted to retaliate the arrests and planned to bomb police vehicles in Abu Kebir on Nov. 06.¹¹ The attack failed as the two explosives-laden vehicles detonated prematurely, killing two terrorists. The authorities secretly arrested the coordinator of the attack the next day.¹²

The Egyptian government began rounding up YMN operatives in February 2016.¹³ By the end of March, more than fifty people affiliated with the network had been apprehended.¹⁴ They and sixteen other YMN associates still at large were charged in May 2016.¹⁵ In late June 2016, another cadre of the network was arrested by the authorities.¹⁶

Following a lengthy trial that had begun in June 2016, a court convicted all 66 defendants in July 2017. Almost thirty operatives of the YMN were given the death penalty. Other associates of the network were handed long prison sentences.¹⁷