CAIRO (Reuters) - A Libyan captured in a raid on a militant group blamed for a deadly attack on Egyptian police said on Thursday that he and other foreign fighters loosely linked to al Qaeda had been operating out of Egypt's western desert since January.

A new and little-known group called Ansar al-Islam claimed responsibility for the October attack, posing a new threat to Egyptian security forces battling a stubborn Islamic State insurgency in the Sinai peninsula since 2013.