Egypt charged two leaders of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood, two Sinai Bedouins and a Palestinian with plotting a terrorist attack with Hamas, a security official said Sunday.
Brotherhood leaders Abdel-Hai al-Faramawy, a professor at Cairo's Al-Azhar university, and Mohammed Wahdan were charged with paying the equivalent of US$3,600 (¤2,300) to two Bedouins to buy 30 jerry cans of fuel, spare parts and a remote control for an unmanned aircraft.
Al-Faramawy denied the charges, while Hamas said the reports were completely false.
The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said Hamas was planning to build the unmanned aircraft but it was not clear how the aircraft was going to be used or who would be targeted. Media reports suggest that everyone from U.S. and Israeli interests to rival Palestinian factions were to be hit.
Hamas does not possess any aircraft, but it has in the past attempted to load remote-controlled airplanes with explosives for attacks on Israeli targets. These attempts have never succeeded.
Previous Hamas attempts to fill remote-controlled planes with explosives are listed here.