Latest news with #Mahsoub
Mada
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Mada
The khot of Upper Egypt
Speaking in a fusha register tinged with Upper Egyptian, Mohamed Mahsoub Ibrahim — dubbed the 'new Khot al-Saeed,' a moniker historically given to a series of outlaws in Upper Egypt after the infamous Mohamed Mansour al-Khot in the mid-20th century — went live on Facebook on February 17 to recount what he described as 'an injustice' he had suffered at the hands of officers at the Sahel Selim police station in Assiut governorate. Over the following three days, as he clashed with the Interior Ministry's Black Cobra forces, he repeatedly went online to talk about what he called the ministry's policy of eliminating the people of Upper Egypt, invoking the Constitution and the rule of law, and holding the ministry responsible for protecting his life and that of his family. This continued right up until the moment when he was ultimately killed. State-run and state-aligned media coverage focused largely on affirming that the police do not kill peaceful civilians, stressing the Interior Ministry's 'utmost care to avoid harming any child or woman from his family during the clash.' Reports also framed Mahsoub as 'a dangerous rogue known in the village of Afadra,' insisting that this end was ' inevitable for anyone who raises a weapon against the state.' In an interview with Al-Arabiya news outlet, former Deputy Interior Minister Mohsen al-Fahham said Mahsoub's criminal record dates back to a minor dispute between neighbors in 2004 that resulted in a three-year prison sentence in absentia. Fahham claimed Mahsoub later joined the Muslim Brotherhood and sheltered several of its members in Assiut following the 2011 revolution and the group's subsequent ouster from power, a claim that the sources who spoke to Mada Masr for this story denied. In the wake of Mahsoub's death — along with seven of his relatives, including his eldest son, Saqr — testimonies began to surface, casting doubt on the official account. Residents pointed to a pattern of police violence in Sahel Selim, including killings, arrests, and cases where individuals were coerced to purchase weapons just to hand them over to the police. These accounts have since expanded geographically, reviving older testimonies of the prevalence of these practices elsewhere in Upper Egypt — particularly over the past three years. A Mada Masr tally conducted on January 12 found that around 42 people were killed in Upper Egypt over the course of the prior 45 days during Interior Ministry raids targeting what it described as 'criminal hotspots.' Yet the ministry has consistently denied that, dismissing the testimonies as 'malicious plots by the terrorist group.' Over the past several weeks, Mada Masr collected a number of documents, reviewed social media accounts — including ones previously run by Mahsoub — and interviewed 14 residents of Sahel Selim, including the families of those killed, detained, or on the run from the Interior Ministry. What many of these individuals have in common is their involvement in blood feuds, or simply that their bad luck put them in a place where parties to such feuds were present. As the state continues to rely on customary policies to address similar issues within traditional family structures, many remain trapped within a cycle of crime, drawn deeper into violence, often met with reciprocal force from the police. The result: many wounded, and some even killed — caught in a web of violence that extends far beyond those directly implicated. Mahsoub's father died shortly after he finished his studies at an Azhar secondary school, his cousin and companion in the days leading up to his death tells Mada Masr. As the eldest sibling, with a younger brother living with a disability, Mahsoub had to take responsibility for the family land. He waited for a chance to travel abroad like many others from their village, Afadra, locally known as the Euro Village due to its high rate of migration to Europe, particularly Greece. But instead, by the age of 21, Mahsoub had already become a 'repeat offender,' spending his nights hiding in the fields alongside fellow fugitives and arms and drug dealers. 'There's not a single pomegranate or mango tree in Afadra you haven't slept under, Mahsoub,' his cousin says in mourning. As with many of Upper Egypt's infamous khots, the story began with a shoma fight. In 2004, Mahsoub struck his brother-in-law on the head with a heavy bludgeon-like stick, causing a concussion from which the man recovered two days later. Yet Mahsoub would spend nearly half his life on the run, not because of the assault itself, which he later reconciled with his relative over, but because he was caught with an automatic rifle and sentenced in absentia to three years in prison. According to the cousin, the rifle wasn't Mahsoub's. He had bought it to turn in to the police, as part of an informal arrangement to avoid prosecution for the fight — a practice several sources say is common. But the officer Mahsoub often mentioned in his posts and videos reneged on the deal and registered the rifle as evidence seized during a home search, the cousin says. This led to Mahsoub's three-year prison sentence. Though he never fulfilled his dream of studying at the Azhar University's Faculty of Sharia and Law, Mahsoub remained an avid follower of news, as evident in his posts commenting on both local and international affairs. During the war on Gaza, his Facebook posts alternated between commentary on the genocide and the Interior Ministry's crackdowns on the ' criminal hotspots.' He caught the attention of sympathizers and detractors alike for his eloquence, which stood out in contrast to the usual assumptions about Upper Egypt's outlaws. He further set himself apart by using social media to deliver politically charged messages, accusing the Interior Ministry of systematically executing Upper Egyptian people, which earned him a group of loyal followers. Mahsoub managed to stay on the run for a long time, supported financially by 34 family members living in Greece, including seven nephews and nieces. This support, his cousin says, allowed him to keep going without turning to drug trafficking, unlike many of the village's other matareed — fugitives pushed to the fringes of their communities. Mahsoub began using the money to buy and plant farmland and purchase homes. But in 2009, that chapter came to an end, when he killed a neighbor during an altercation in retaliation for the murder of a cousin. And once again, Mahsoub resumed life on the run. Eventually, however, the cost of life in hiding took its financial toll. Mahsoub began dealing arms on a limited scale, according to his cousin. The arms trade has spread widely across Upper Egypt, especially in the wake of the January 2011 revolution. But even before the revolution, 'Most people here knew where to find weapons, even if they didn't sell them,' says Ammar, the son of Salem Ahmed Salem — known as Salem Helaa — Mahsoub's close friend who was killed ten years ago in a clash with security forces. After the revolution, the proliferation of blood feuds in the area prompted many locals to arm themselves for protection. 'Before the revolution, our village had two feuds. Now we have seven,' Ammar says. When blood feuds drag on, families sometimes resort to dealing weapons or drugs just to keep up with the costs, he says. Some families even set up their own workshops to pack ammunition and make guns in order to reduce expenses. According to Interior Ministry data, between early 2012 and the end of 2016, authorities found 18 such workshops for manufacturing weapons and ammunition in the Sahel Selim district alone. In one 2016 operation to rescue a kidnapping victim, security forces found an explosives factory by chance. According to Ammar, Mahsoub's arms dealings were on a small scale and carried out with Salem's help. Salem played a key role in turning both himself and Mahsoub into enemies of the Sahel Selim police force. He also had a major hand in altering the quantity and quality of weapons available to the district's residents. Salem resolved his blood feud, which had begun in 2009, according to the customary proceedings and the ruling of the reconciliation committee convened at the start of 2012, 'in coordination with the Sahel Selim police station,' as reported at the time by Youm7. It was part of his attempt to return to a normal life and start over, after selling family-owned land to finance the purchase of weapons and ammunition and rebuild his house, which had been demolished by order of the security authorities to pressure him into accepting the reconciliation. Ammar says the other family dropped the charges against his father and uncle after they performed the ritualistic settlement. With that, they were no longer wanted by the authorities, and 'my father's cousin, Abdu Saleh, took the fall for the case,' as decided by the reconciliation committee. But just three years later, the Interior Ministry celebrated Salem's killing in a raid it described as the 'strongest security blow' it had carried out. The ministry displayed the bodies of Salem and an associate, labeling them 'highly dangerous criminals.' Explaining how his father went from a man with no active cases to a 'high-risk criminal,' Ammar says that after Salem chose to focus on his family and business, police asked him to hand over a relative: Ashraf Helaa. Ashraf had made a name for himself as a criminal and began terrorizing their village, Shamiya. He imposed itawa — historically a form of protection fee, but in modern times used as a tool of extortion — on Christians after the massacres at the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins on August 14, 2013, when security and armed forces attacked supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi and killed over 800 protesters. Ashraf was also involved in the killing of two Christians in September 2013 — one of them a well known political activist and member of the Social Democratic Party's political bureau. The case drew public attention, especially among politicians, including party leader Mohamed Abul Ghar, who at the time wrote an article alleging that the activists' killer was 'driven by an Islamist group.' In response to the murder, security forces launched a massive crackdown, detaining around 300 members of Salem's extended family in a single sweep and demolishing three of their homes, in addition to destroying their farmland. 'My father knew then that it was just a matter of time before they killed him,' Ammar says. And the war that turned into open chaos in the district then began. In the 15 months between the activists' murder and Salem's death in late 2014, Sahel Selim turned into a battleground. Interior Ministry data shows that around 867 firearms were seized during that period, including RPGs, PK machine guns, mortars and Grinov machine guns. Kidnappings, especially of Christians, became rampant. This forced doctors at Sahel Selim's General Hospital and the neighboring Bedari district to strike, due to the frequent kidnappings of medical staff and raids to rob the hospital. Residents staged protests more than once for the same reason. Kidnappings continued even four years after Salem was killed. 'We were the first to carry out kidnappings. Then everyone rode our wave and started kidnapping people,' says Ammar. Still, Salem refused to turn in his relative, prompting the police to go after him. He became the first suspect in every crime committed by Ashraf, and, as a result, lost his property and savings in the process. According to Ammar, it was this pressure that drove his father to work with Ashraf as a mediator between him and families forced to either pay itawa or ransom for kidnapped individuals, in exchange for half of the payments. He also became more involved in arms trading. 'My father was the first to bring an RPG into Sahel Selim,' Ammar says. Mahsoub remained close to Salem until the latter's death. And while Mahsoub did engage in arms trading, Ammar and three Christians — two from Salem's village of Shamiya and one from Mahsoub's village of Afadra — tell Mada Masr that he was never involved in collecting itawa or kidnapping. The latter source dismissed Mahsoub's implication in the itawa -related charges as 'spiteful.' Mashoub repeatedly refuted these accusations in live streams, denying any involvement in extortion. However, according to two sources from both families, speaking to Mada Masr, he did take part in resisting police raids that targeted Salem — something Ammar sees as nothing more than 'a duty of friendship.' The escalation in Upper Egypt — particularly after the 2011 revolution — can't be separated from the region's socioeconomic realities and its crises as handled by the state, which largely relies on customary frameworks and codes operating outside the bounds of the law. State officials, including security personnel, have acknowledged the connection between violence in Upper Egypt and the region's marginalization — a link that was especially emphasized during the wave of jihadist armed violence in the 1990s, which was largely centered in Upper Egypt, particularly in Assiut governorate. Decades later, Upper Egypt's governorates are still among the poorest in the country and are some of the most underserved in terms of healthcare and education. In an environment with scarce opportunities for social mobility, individuals often seek upward mobility within large extended families. These families rely on remittances from relatives working in the Gulf or southern Europe to build homes clustered together in their villages — usually on agricultural land in violation of the law, leaving them under constant threat of demolition. According to 20 residents of Sahel Selim who spoke to Mada Masr for this story, more than half of the men in their families work either as low-wage laborers abroad — particularly in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Greece and Italy — or in Egypt's northern governorates, employed in factories in 6th of October and Badr cities or in agricultural projects in Beheira. Their limited savings are invested in modest buildings constructed on their farmland, which they also try to mechanize and expand by purchasing additional small plots — though even the wealthiest families rarely own more than 18 feddans for households of ten. Many of the area's blood feuds, according to these accounts, often begin with disputes over the right to land purchases, which are governed by customs granting priority to relatives and neighbors when a plot is put up for sale. This practice is meant to avoid quarreling over irrigation turns and other chronic issues between neighbors. All testimonies, except for one, pointed to such disputes with cousins or neighbors as the thing that sets off blood feuds. In a setting where family members live together, co-own land, prepare their sons to seek work abroad and reinvest remittances back into their villages, avenging the death of a relative becomes a collective duty that requires drawing in all available family resources. On the other hand, the state has, for decades, relied on customary reconciliation arrangements to manage Upper Egypt's conflicts — especially blood feuds. Central to this system is the reconciliation committee, which operates according to unwritten customary rules. These customs determine financial compensation, ritualistic offerings, or forced expulsion from the village — but they do not impose custodial or bodily punishments. The parties to the conflict agree on a neutral venue to convene the customary reconciliation session, where each presents their side of the conflict, its causes, repercussions and supporting evidence to the reconciliation council. After deliberations, the council issues a ruling that is documented in a report, detailing the session's key information, the verdict and penalty clauses should either side renege. 'The power and influence of reconciliation committee members vary depending on the nature and escalation of the conflict, the power and influence of the families involved and their ties to state institutions,' according to a report by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) on reconciliation practices in sectarian cases. EIPR Freedom of Religion and Belief Officer Ishak Ibrahim tells Mada Masr that the police have an interest in maintaining calm in areas with tribal and familial structures, 'particularly in murder cases, whether criminal or sectarian in nature.' For this reason, when feuds prove intractable — or to expedite a resolution — the state often exerts pressure on both sides using all possible tools beyond just police intervention. 'You see supply and health inspectors raiding shops owned by the feuding families, demolition campaigns targeting their homes, their members being repeatedly stopped at checkpoints and so on,' he explains. Many families end up accepting reconciliation 'to secure the release of relatives detained as a result of the feud,' he adds. While Ibrahim does not object to social intervention mechanisms to preserve civil peace in principle, he stresses the importance of ensuring that neither side is coerced into waiving their legal rights. In his view, practices such as requiring rivals to sign a trust receipt ahead of customary reconciliation sessions — a common prerequisite — effectively strip them of the option to back out of customary settlements and pursue litigation. 'This violates constitutional and legal rights,' he says, 'and creates the risk of reigniting feuds, especially when one party feels they've been overpowered and the other hasn't paid the price for their crime.' Customary councils are typically formed of leadership figures from the area where the crime took place, Ibrahim notes, often reflecting existing power balances within the village or district. Based on the outcome of these sessions, parties usually drop complaints or cases filed against each other in minor disputes. But if the offenses involved acts with broader social implications — such as murder, arson, or intimidation — legal proceedings should, in theory, continue. 'Courts sometimes take reconciliation into account,' he adds, 'but they are not bound by it.' It wasn't until a 2014 feud between the Daboudiya and Halayla tribes in Aswan — so severe it prompted the grand imam of Al-Azhar to step in and form a permanent supreme committee for reconciliation, with subcommittees in each village — that any fixed reconciliation framework began to emerge. Before that, reconciliation councils lacked any standardized structure, with the exception of the stretch between Sohag and Aswan, where councils typically include village mayors, tribal elders and former religious and security leaders who work in coordination with the police. While there isn't any official legal framework, governors in some governorates with a tribal makeup have issued directives to establish reconciliation committees at the governorate level, and the Interior Ministry plays a central role in overseeing this process. These committees include at least one police officer, and when they fail to broker a settlement, police often escalate their involvement, putting pressure on the families involved by depleting them financially and psychologically to force a resolution. Such measures frequently operate in a legal grey area. In an episode of the Awraq al-Qadiyya podcast, the former head of criminal investigations in Sohag and a member of Al-Azhar's higher reconciliation committee, Khaled al-Shazly, outlined some of the tactics used by officers to compel feuding families to settle. According to Shazly, police officers might order the suspension of family members from their places of work or have them reassigned to jobs outside their hometowns, move their children to schools in nearby districts, issue demolition orders against unlicensed homes, or carry out monthly police raids. If negotiations reach an impasse, the officer may even 'open a security file' on the families — a step families tell Mada Masr is deeply unsettling for them as it undermines their social standing within the community. Such tactics have fueled ongoing tensions between residents and police in Sahel Selim, tensions that escalated significantly in the wake of the 2011 revolution, according to Ammar and other residents of the area. A series of attacks targeting police began less than a month after the revolution, with the killing of a police sergeant and an attempted assassination of a police investigator. In February 2012, an explosive device was found among the belongings of the suspect. Two months later, in April, the Sahel Selim police chief was injured in an attack. The Sahel Selim station itself came under attack for the first time in May 2012 during an attempt to help detainees escape. Four days later, a detainee took his own life in custody, prompting residents to block the agricultural road. Another attack on Sahel Selim police officers came in late 2017. Violence surged again following the bloody dispersal of the Rabaa and Nahda sit-ins in 2013. Over two consecutive days, individuals attempted to storm the police station using mortar shells, killing a police guard. But the eruption of violence wasn't driven by political reasons only. In some cases, police officers were targeted for carrying out arrests, among other reasons. In the months and years that followed, one officer, three sergeants, a detective and two conscripts were injured in separate incidents. Armed men also attacked a police patrol in the district. In response, security forces launched raids to pursue a large number of wanted individuals, according to residents speaking to Mada Masr. Before his death, one of the most serious accusations leveled by Mahsoub was that police had been unlawfully killing large numbers of Upper Egyptians — allegations that have circulated repeatedly over the past several years. On June 18, 2023, a video went viral showing a devastated woman accusing police of killing her husband, Feisal Antar, along with five of his friends from the Seddiq family. The video was quickly taken down but resurfaced online less than a month later. Mada Masr spoke with Shaimaa Ahmed, the woman in the video. 'My husband was alive, saying, 'We've surrendered ourselves,'' she says, insisting that he was 'executed, not killed in an exchange of gunfire.' According to her, police opened fire as soon as they arrived at their home in the village of Bani Fiz in the Sodfa district, before storming the house. As the men began stepping out from the guest reception room to see what was happening, 'whoever walked out was shot,' she says. During the raid, police detained Feisal's wife and their three children in one of the rooms and confiscated their phones, she says. Throughout that time, Shaimaa could hear intermittent gunfire. At one point, she briefly stepped out and saw her husband 'standing on his feet, with a gun to his head,' before officers forced her back inside. Moments later, the shooting resumed. 'I could hear my husband's voice and two others with him,' she said, adding that she heard him pleading with the officer for his life. Shaimaa describes finding part of a man's chin blown off due to the intensity of the gunshot. According to her, police left body parts scattered on the floor and hastily piled the bodies into a police vehicle 'like dogs.' She stresses that the family was not involved in any blood feuds and had no experience using firearms — especially Feisal, who was exempted from compulsory military service. Feisal had spent 20 years working in Saudi Arabia as a ceramic tile contractor — like all his brothers, all of whom had completed elementary education, except for the eldest, a lawyer based in Kuwait, Shaimaa says. Feisal's family owned a five-feddan pomegranate farm prepared for export, in addition to a livestock business. 'We don't need to deal in drugs and arms like the police report claimed,' she says. According to Shaimaa, her husband returned to Egypt two months before he was killed, to host a Quran-reading gathering during Ramadan in memory of his father who had passed away three years earlier. She believes his death was linked to his hosting of five men from the Seddiq family. Feisal had grown close to three of them while working in Saudi Arabia. While the Seddiq family had been involved in a blood feud in their hometown of Sahel Selim, Shaimaa says that none of the men were armed during their visit to Feisal. Following his death, Shaimaa sent official telegrams appealing to the Public Prosecutor, the Interior Ministry, the prime minister and the National Council for Human Rights, accusing the Sahel Selim police station of extrajudicially killing her husband. She also filed a complaint with the prosecution — an act that led to her being summoned for questioning four days after her husband's killing. No legal action has been taken. Shaimaa describes the panic that swept through her entire village after the incident. 'Our children started hiding under the couches whenever they saw police vehicles in the streets. They terrified us,' she says, adding, 'These days, it feels like the state is coming down too hard on Upper Egypt.' Ahmed Seddiq, one of the surviving members of his family, tells Mada Masr that his cousin, Azmy Seddiq — who was killed along with several relatives by security forces — had previously avenged the killing of his uncle, Gamal Seddiq, who was murdered three years earlier in a blood feud with in-laws of the family. According to Ahmed, three days before Azmy was killed, a police officer from the Sahel Selim station contacted the family to request his surrender — a proposal they had agreed to. They had only been waiting for a reconciliation committee to intervene, hoping to secure a lighter sentence and arrange matters. That is why, Ahmed says, Feisal felt confident when he hosted the Seddiq family members, only to be killed alongside them without having done anything wrong. He stresses that none of those killed had outstanding court rulings, except for a single police report filed by the feuding family against one of their cousins. Seventeen-year-old Mohamed Seddiq was also among the murdered, he says. One of the others targeted in the police's arrest campaigns was Mahmoud Ali Ahmed Amer, who had been sentenced in absentia to ten years in prison. However, according to his brother, Amr Ali, a reconciliation between the feuding families had already taken place earlier that same year. Amr tells Mada Masr that at dawn on August 18, 2022, security forces surrounded their home in the village of Shamiya. Snipers were positioned on top of a poultry farm to the east of the house. 'When my brother saw how big the raid was, he panicked and tried to escape across the rooftop. The snipers shot him twice — in the head and chest,' he says. Afterward, the forces stormed the house, detained the mother, wives and children in a room and 'handcuffed my younger brother,' Amr says. The brother was detained at the station for two days, he adds. 'They threw Mahmoud's body down instead of carrying it down the stairs,' Amr adds. Amr refutes the account in the police's report, which claimed his brother was arrested at a checkpoint in the neighboring village of Matmar, ten kilometers away, in possession of drugs and a weapon, and that he resisted arrest. The family challenged these claims in a report submitted two days after Mahmoud's killing — once the younger brother was released. 'We delayed it because we were afraid for our brother still held at the station,' Amr explains. He acknowledges that Mahmoud had previously resisted arrest in 2017, but was later acquitted by the court. Since then, Amr says, police have been targeting the entire family. Their home has been demolished twice. Mahmoud, he adds, had been planning to turn himself in once the circuit judge — known for issuing harsh sentences — was rotated out. Amr denies that his brother resisted arrest on the day he was killed. As with the other testimonies collected by Mada Masr, Amr rejects the accusation of drug trafficking. He stresses that the family was financially stable and owned 13 feddans of pomegranate farms. The head of the family is an agricultural engineer and serves as the head of the village's agricultural association. His brother 'didn't even smoke,' he says. Around seven months after Mahmoud's killing, security forces killed Ahmed Kamal Abu Kahla — the only one among the cases Mada Masr documented whose family had nothing to do, directly or indirectly, with any feud. Abu Kahla had been sentenced in absentia to five years in the case known in the media as the 'attempted raid on the Sahel Selim police station.' According to several sources from the area, the case has prompted police to pursue nearly 70 residents of the district, some of whom the sources say were abroad at the time. One of Abu Kahla's brothers tells Mada Masr that Ahmed was shot dead near their home on March 20, 2023. According to him, the officer leading the operation had phoned Ahmed earlier, warning him to return home or risk having his family detained. The officer assured him he would not be killed, the brother says. But once he returned, a sniper shot him, and the leading officer finished him off with a bullet to the chest. Ahmed didn't fire a single shot at the forces, the brother says, adding that all the neighbors witnessed the killing and are willing to testify before the prosecution if an investigation is opened. Residents and family members are often unable to document such killings, the brother says, because during what locals now call 'elimination raids,' security forces use signal-jamming vehicles, confiscate surveillance footage — only returning cameras after erasing content — and force people into their homes with their windows shut. Many of those speaking to Mada Masr say such practices are common, seen also during the raid targeting Mahsoub. According to three sources from Mahsoub's village, Afadra, police cleared the streets of civilians, and even Mahsoub himself experienced signal jamming while attempting to livestream during the exchange of fire. Around two months after Abu Kahla's killing, a security campaign killed a social worker from Arab Matmar, Ali Shaaban, in front of several eyewitnesses, his daughter Nadia said. Shaaban was on his farmland when he saw a police vehicle approaching, Nadia said. He went to move his cargo motorcycle out of the way, but an officer stepped out and shot him in the head, killing him instantly. The day after Nadia's testimonial was published, the Sahel Selim police station summoned her. She was accompanied by her uncle, who was released the same day. Nadia, only 16 years old, was detained for four days. The police station later denied she had been held, prompting the family to file a police report, according to the Egyptian Network for Human Rights. Similar testimonies surfaced after Mahsoub's killing. A member of the Louly family posted a video saying police had killed his father, uncle, two brothers — one of whom was a minor — and a fifth person whose identity he didn't disclose, in a police raid on January 11, 2024. Although the livestream was later deleted, it was reuploaded by several accounts from Sahel Selim on TikTok. In the video, he explained that his family had been involved in a blood feud that could have been resolved peacefully, without more loss of life, and called for an investigation into his complaint against officers at the Sahel Selim police station. He also said he still holds evidence of the movements of his brother, Ali Khairy Louly, showing he had returned from Umrah just eight and a half hours before he was killed. He showed a forensic report stating that Ali was hit by 17 bullets, all to the upper body: chest, arms, underarm, shoulder and right hand. The minor, Aloush Khairy, was hit by 15 bullets, 13 to the upper body. The Interior Ministry denied the claims made in the video, stating that it had targeted 'one of the most dangerous criminal hotspots in the Sahel Selim police district' and accusing the group of drug and unlicensed firearms trafficking. The ministry said a police officer and a policeman were injured while 'dealing with them' and asserted that 'all procedures were carried out within the legal framework.' In addition to testimonies from the families of 15 people killed over the course of 37 months in Sahel Selim — a district with a population of just over 172,000, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics — many others were either imprisoned or became fugitives. Mada Masr spoke with seven such individuals, all of whom said they were targeted either because of their family's involvement in a blood feud, police pressure to turn in a relative or neighbor, or demands to hand over weapons. In the years following Salem's killing, Mahsoub tried to stay out of sight, steering clear of any police contact. But in 2017, the Interior Ministry renewed its pursuit, forcing him to leave his village for six months. During that time, he relocated to Beheira, where he jointly ran a farm with an acquaintance, but security forces tracked him down, arresting five members of his family in the process. He then returned to his village in disguise, but still faced near-annual raids, according to his cousin, who tells Mada Masr that police raided the homes of every member of Mahsoub's family. 'Even our relatives in Cairo changed the addresses on their ID cards just to escape the Interior Ministry's pursuit,' he says. A significant escalation came this year, following the killing of Central Security Agency officer Karim Yassin during a security raid in the Sahel Selim district on January 3. The Interior Ministry claimed the operation resulted in the deaths of six 'criminal elements' in the village of Ouna. According to Al-Ahram, 62 'criminal elements' were killed in security raids between the start of the year and March 7, with 45 of them in Upper Egypt. This means that over 72 percent of those killed were in a region that accounts for just a third of Egypt's population. The ministry's statements also showed that a third of those killed were from Assiut governorate, one of ten in Upper Egypt. Responding to the escalation on his Facebook page, Mahsoub wrote that all those killed were 'sons of the Egyptian people, whether police officers, farmers, or Upper Egyptians,' and warned against pitting citizens against one another 'in the name of the state and its law.' He denounced what he described as the unnatural frequency of civilian killings during these raids and pointed out that many of the victims were involved in blood feuds, which he claimed to 'have long been recognized by Egypt's constitution and laws.' Mahsoub continued to follow the raids in which 'rogues' were being killed, until he himself, along with his brother, his underage son, three cousins and a neighbor with a mental disability, became another set of names added to the list of the dead. A large crowd from his village and neighboring villages attended his funeral. His cousin and another source from the village, speaking on condition of anonymity, say most of the mourners were not from Mahsoub's family, as nearly all the men had fled for fear of arrest — except for around ten, who were instructed by security forces to collect the bodies. The funeral was accompanied by a wave of posts and videos praising Mahsoub's resistance to the authorities, shared widely in Facebook groups where the majority of users are from Upper Egypt, Matrouh, or Sinai. Some even performed Umrah on his behalf after his death. While he was still encircled by the Black Cobra forces, many prayed for his safety — one even streamed his prayer live from the Great Mosque of Mecca. 'Yes, I made mistakes — we're all humans and we all make mistakes,' Mahsoub admitted in several posts, calling to be held accountable under the law, the same law he said should apply to all members of the Egyptian population — 'the sole owners of the state, even if they are marginalized in their rights.' But he tied his own accountability to the need to also hold accountable those responsible for the bloodshed of many residents in Sahel Selim and other parts of Upper Egypt, killed for being caught up in blood feuds — feuds he insisted were 'recognized across all of Egypt.' In the end, Mahsoub chose not to flee the final raid on his home, after years of publicly chronicling his story online, focusing on the 'unjust' charge of weapons possession in 2004 that left him under pursuit until his death.
Al-Ahram Weekly
17-02-2025
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Eight dangerous criminals killed in Upper Egypt's Assiut shootout: Interior ministry - Courts & Law
The Egyptian police killed eight dangerous criminals, including a fugitive sentenced to 191 years, in a violent shootout that left one officer injured during a major security operation in Upper Egypt's Assiut. According to a Monday evening statement from the Ministry of Interior, the criminal gang was involved in drug trafficking, illegal firearms possession, extortion, and terrorizing citizens in Assiut's Sahil Selim area. The gang was led by Mohamed Mahsoub Ibrahim Ahmed, who was wanted in 44 felony cases, including drug trafficking, murder, illegal weapons possession, armed robbery, arson, and vandalism. Mahsoub had been sentenced to 191 years in prison, while other members also faced long sentences, with one individual receiving 108 years for crimes such as murder, attempted murder, drug offences, and weapons possession. The criminals had been hiding in mountainous areas and regularly visiting a fortified hideout in Al-Afadra village, which they had fortified with trenches and bunkers, according to the interior ministry. In response, police forces, including Central Security Sector units, launched a raid to apprehend the criminals, and the clashes continued for three days, according to Egyptian media outlets. The gang opened fire using RPGs, F1 grenades, and automatic rifles. To obstruct the operation, they also detonated gas cylinders to block officers from entering the building. The ensuing exchange of fire led to the deaths of all eight criminals and the injury of a Central Security Forces officer. Following the operation, security forces seized a large cache of weapons and narcotics, including RPG launchers, two Grenov machine guns, 73 automatic rifles, a multi-barrel machine gun, 11 pump-action shotguns, 62 locally manufactured firearms, eight F1 grenades, and a significant amount of ammunition. Egyptian authorities confirmed that legal actions have been taken. Short link:
