Hesham Ali Ashmawy Mos'ad Ibrahim (Arabic: هشام علي عشماوي مسعد إبراهيم;‎ 1978 – 4 March 2020) was a convicted terrorist who previously was an Egyptian Army officer, suspected by the government of having orchestrated and been involved in a number of terrorist attacks on security targets and state institutions, including the 2014 Farafra ambush and the 2015 assassination of Prosecutor general Hisham Barakat.

Accusations of spreading extremist thought and of incitement against the Egyptian Armed Forces led to his eventual dismissal from the military in 2011 under circumstances that remain unclear.

He embraced al-Qaeda and went on to join Ansar Bait al-Maqdis in 2012, but eventually defected from the group in 2015, following its declaration of allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

[5] In 2003, Lieutenant Ashmawy married Nesreen Sayed Ali, a former senior year student in Abdelmegid's school who became a teaching assistant at Ain Shams University.

"[8] Nesreen later described the death of Ashmawy's father in 2010 as turning point in her husband's life,[11] after which he became depressed and started reading the works of Sunni theologian Ibn Taymiyyah.

[7] Ashmawy managed to form a militant cell with four other suspended officers following his 2011 dismissal, and later joined Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (ABM) in 2013 and gradually rose in the group's ranks.

[5] The Ministry of Interior also traced down a trip that he made to Turkey on 27 April 2013, and then later across the border into Syria,[10] where he is suspected by authorities to have fought alongside al-Nusra Front.

[6] Egyptian authorities have linked his name with several militant cells and operations throughout the following year, including the Arab Sharkas case and the 2014 Farafra ambush,[14] which he had personally executed and previously planned while based in Ansar al-Sharia camps in Libya.

[5] He announced in a video that same month the formation of a network named al-Mourabitoun which would remain loyal to al-Qaeda rather than ISIL,[19] to which the latter responded later on by referring to Ashmawy as an "apostate" and issuing a bounty on his life.

[20] During the same video announcement, he encouraged Muslims to wage global jihad and denounced Egypt's government and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

"[21] Ashmawy released a second statement in March 2016 in the form of an audio communique accompanied by image slides that included a photo of him in military uniform and a panorama of Jerusalem with the words "O Aqsa, we are coming" appearing on the screen.

In the message, Ashmawy called on Egyptian ulama and clerics to rally Muslim youth and encourage them "to expel the invaders from the abode of Islam and wage jihad against the criminal el-Sisi, his soldiers, and supporters.

[26] Ashmawy, under the nickname "Abu Mohannad", was sentenced to death in absentia by a military court on 27 December 2017, along with ten other defendants, for various terrorism-related charges as part of a case called Ansar Bait al-Maqdis 3 by local media.

[29] On 8 October 2018, Ahmed al-Mismari, spokesman of the Libyan National Army (LNA), announced the capturing of Ashmawy during a surprise operation by a unit of the 106th Mujahfal Brigade in the mountainous al-Maghar district of Derna.

[29] The LNA also released video footage from the raid's aftermath showing Ashmawy being escorted to an armored vehicle, as well as photos of his bloodied face.