Egypt's prosecution on Sunday referred 292 alleged members of the Islamic State (ISIS) group to a military court on charges of plotting to assassinate President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, the website of the Al-Ahram newspaper reported.
Judiciary sources told local media that the military prosecution will release detailed confessions from a number of the suspects.
The arrests came after a year-long investigation carried out by the state security prosecution, according to Al-Ahram. The suspects plotted two assassination attempts against Al-Sisi, with the first in 2014 as he performed a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
The alleged attempt, which also targeted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, involved members from terrorist cells in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The prosecution did not specify how the plot was foiled.
The second attempt was allegedly orchestrated by a terrorist cell consisting of seven members – six former police officers and a dentist – who planned to attack the president's convoy using explosive charges as it travelled in Cairo, according to Al-Ahram.
The suspects were also responsible for carrying out a number of high-profile attacks in the Sinai Peninsula, the newspaper reported, including the bombing of a tourist bus in the resort town of Taba in February 2014 that killed two South Koreans and an Egyptian driver.
The assassination attempt on Sisi was part of a larger plan to overthrow the current regime that would also involve the assassination of former interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim over the 2013 dispersal of Cairo sit-ins supporting ousted president Mohammed Morsi, according to the prosecution.
Ibrahim survived an assassination attempt in September of 2013, which occurred as a car bomb ripped through Ibrahim’s convoy as he was leaving home for work.
One person was killed but Ibrahim, who was travelling in an armored car, survived the attempt unhurt.
Authorities say the six former police officers involved in the plots were members of the "bearded police officers" group formed in 2012, whose members said they would grow their beards in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic doctrine.
Authorities say these former security officials planned to use their expertise to target the president’s convoy as it moved through Cairo.
Egypt has been has been fighting an Islamist insurgency since 2011, mostly in the Sinai Peninsula where the ISIS-affiliated Sinai Province has claimed many attacks.
In addition to Sinai Province, another terrorist group, Hasm, which is suspected of links to the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, has claimed responsibility in recent weeks for a series of attacks in Cairo. These include a shooting against the country's former mufti and a car bomb against the chief prosecutor's deputy.