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| Africa North |
| Egypt group leaders join al Qaeda - Zawahri video |
| 2006-08-05 |
| Some leaders of Egypt's Gama'a Islamiya have joined al Qaeda, al Qaeda's deputy head Ayman al-Zawahri said in a video aired on Al Jazeera television on Saturday. "We bring good tidings to the Muslim nation about a big faction of the knights of the Gama'a Islamiya uniting with al Qaeda," Zawahri said in the video. He said the move aimed to help "rally the Muslim nation's capabilities in a unified rank in the face of the most severe crusader campaign against Islam in its history." Zawahri named Mohamed al-Islambouli as one of those who had joined al Qaeda. He was apparently referring to Mohamed Shawqi Islambouli, a Gama'a leader and a brother of Khaled Islambouli, who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. A man introduced by Zawahri as a Gama'a leader, Mohamed Hakaima, appeared in a portion of the video and confirmed the unity move, but said some group members had "deviated" from it. "This (move) is in adherence to the Lord's word (about the need to unify Muslims) and in support of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman," said Hakaima, carrying an assault rifle and standing in an area covered with palm trees. Hakaima, who is not well known internationally, said the move was to push out the "enemy occupier of Muslim lands." Abdel-Rahman, a Gama'a spiritual leader, is jailed in the United States after being convicted on charges linked to the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. "A group of brothers from the Gama'a Islamiya, who had been subjected to pressures and influences, ... went to the path of the Egyptian government and America," Zawahri said of those who had declined to join al Qaeda. The Egyptian-born militant leader wore a white robe and turban and sat against a black background. He joined the Islamic Jihad when it was founded in 1973 and was among 301 people arrested in Sadat's assassination but was cleared at trial. He did, though, spend three years in jail for having an unlicensed pistol. He took over leadership of Jihad in Egypt in 1993 and was a part of a campaign in the mid-1990s to set up a purist Islamic state, in which more than 1,200 Egyptians died. In 1999, an Egyptian military court sentenced Zawahri to death in absentia. The Egyptian government detained many thousands of Gama'a members or sympathizers in the 1990s, when the group was waging a low-level guerrilla war against the security forces, mainly in the south of the country. Hundreds have come out of detention over the years after renouncing the use of violence to overthrow the government. Gama'a leaders declared a truce with the government in 1997, after an attack on tourists at a pharaonic temple in Luxor. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 Good Mr Muslim. Keep polarising and escalating. Some of us cannot wait for the big pretext. |
| Posted by: Snease Shaiting3550 2006-08-05 22:50 |
| #2 knights? sounds like a crusade! Count me in! ....for the other side |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-08-05 20:34 |
| #1 Excellent... it's pledge week. |
| Posted by: AQ Sgt At Arms 2006-08-05 20:02 |