Two Egyptian terrorists located in Turkey has been designated as the leaders of HASM, the acronym for Harakat Sawa’d Misr (Arms of Egypt Movement), by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, analyst Aykan Erdemir said in a piece published on the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD) website on Tuesday.
This is the fourth set of the U.S. Treasury since April 2019 of targeting a Turkey-based terrorist network, revealing the spread of radical Islamists rising from the environment Ankara created, senior director of the Turkey Programme at the FDD, Erdemir said.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Department of State designated HASM itself as a foreign terrorist organization, which the Egyptian government blames of being the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, Erdemir said.
According to U.S. State Department, Alaa Ali Ali Mohammed al-Samahi and Yahya al-Sayyid Ibrahim Musa, the two HASM leaders designated by U.S. Treasury are both based in Turkey and Samahi also had an operational mission as pitching in attack planning and supervising the organization’s finances, Erdemir stated.
The Treasury designation states that Musa owns a Turkish passport, which provides him a visa-free access to 110 countries, Erdemir said.
Since 2019, Washington has designated various Turkey-based entities and individuals affiliated with jihadist organizations, including al-Qaeda, Hamas, the Islamic State, as well as HASM, Erdemir said.
Ahval