Islamic State in Egypt’s Soldiers of the Caliphate (Jihadi Entity, Egypt)

• Local Name: N/a
• Transliteration: Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Misr – Jund al-Khilafa
• Alternatives: N/a
• Status: 2017 – 2017 (Defeated)
• Conflicts: Egyptian Islamist Militancy

The Islamic State in Egypt’s Soldiers of the Caliphate [DaIM-JK; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Misr – Jund al-Khilafa] was a short-lived jihadi cell that acted as an Egyptian branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant [DaIISh; Dawlat al-Islamiya fi-Iraq wal ash-Sham]. It was formed by Hassan Attallah following his escape from police custody in April 2017.¹ He immediately linked up with his former associates and reorganized some of the remnants of the Islamic State in Egypt’s South Giza Network [DaIM-SG] to establish the new outfit. The group quickly began preparing to attack a Coptic church and the police.²

On Jul. 05, 2017, DaIM-JK operatives killed three soldiers in an attack on a toll booth in Ayat, in the Giza governorate.³ Nine days later, the outfit ambushed a police van in the Badrasheen suburb of Giza, killing five officers.⁴

Security forces tracked the perpetrators and killed two of them in an operation on Jul. 15, 2017.⁵ Later that month, police raided another hideout of the group in Sadis min-Oktubar. Attallah and three other key members of the cell were eliminated in the operation.⁶ Other cadres of the DaIM-JK were rounded up around the same time. In May 2018, the Egyptian authorities referred six of the outfit’s detained operatives to court.⁷