Tag: Egyptian Islamic Jihad

20 October 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Ali Mohammed

 

Ali Mohammed pleads guilty. Surely one of the strangest sub-plots of 9/11.

Mohammed was the only al Qaeda operative known to have successfully infiltrated the U.S. military and intelligence community before 9/11. Along the way, he was an Egyptian Army officer who learned to speak English and Hebrew, attended foreign officer training at Ft. Bragg, was recruited by the CIA, joined Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, was dropped by the CIA, entered the U.S. despite being on a watchlist and again was engaged by the CIA, married an American woman and moved to California, enlisted in the U.S. Army, joined special forces back at Ft. Bragg, taught Middle East and radicalism courses to the Army, took leave to go and fight in Afghanistan, returned to the Army and secretly trained radicals in New York who were later implicated for the November 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, wrote the al Qaeda training manual “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants,” got an honorable discharge from the Army (after all that), joined the Army Reserve, continued work for al Qaeda from his home in Santa Clara, California, became an informant to the FBI, helped Osama bin Laden leave Afghanistan in 1991, worked to settle bin Laden in Sudan, trained al Qaeda recruits, returned to Afghanistan to provide explosives and tradecraft training, helped to set up the al Qaeda cell in Kenya that would blow up the Embassy in 1998, hosted Zawahiri on a fundraising tour of American mosques, continued to work for the FBI, provided Army intelligence with information on camps in Afghanistan, fought with fighters loyal to Farah Aideed in Somalia, scouted targets for bin Laden in Kenya and Tanzania, helped bin Laden move back to Afghanistan, was secretly arrested after the African embassy bombings, and becomes an informant (again) for the government.

In October 2000, Mohamed entered a guilty plea on five counts of conspiracy. Thereafter in custody, Ali Mohammed’s life was a bit of a mystery, supposedly never sentenced and after 9/11, again a source for the CIA and FBI.

6 October 1981

Posted on by William Arkin
Sadat assassination

 

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is assassinated while viewing a military parade celebrating the eighth anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when Egypt crossed the Suez Canal into the Sinai Peninsula.

As the two-hour parade is culminating with a flyover, a truck stops in front of the reviewing stand. Five soldiers shoot into the crowd of dignitaries and throw grenades, killing Sadat. The soldiers are often associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic group that is a legitimate political force in Egypt. In reality, they are followers of what would become Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Gama’a al-Islamiya (the Islamic Group), the modern-day feeders of al Qaeda.

Some 300 Islamic radicals are arrested after the Sadat assassination, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, an English-speaking doctor, who would go on to become Osama bin Laden’s second and successor.

29 September 2000

Posted on by William Arkin
Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Rifa'i Ahmed Taha

 

Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Rifa’i Ahmed Taha appear on Al Jazeera with the son of Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian “the blind Sheikh,” calling for his release from American prison. The Blind Sheikh’s 1995 trial involved a group of New York-based terrorists in the so-called “Landmarks” case (or the “Days of Terror”), plans to blow up the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and other New York landmarks. The Egyptian was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison under the rarely used Sedition Act of 1918.

The Al Jazeera video, aired numerous times starting on September 21, is believed to have been filmed sometime in the spring of 2000. It includes a direct warning by Zawahiri. “Enough of words,” he says, “it is time to take action against the iniquitous and faithless force which has spread troops through Egypt, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.”

By 2000, the al Qaeda leader and the two leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)—Zawahiri and Taha—are practically joined as one, and the leadership of al Qaeda is dominated by Egyptians. But bin Laden’s influence should not be underestimated. By all accounts, he was successful in getting Zawahiri and the EIJ to focus away from attacks on the Cairo regime and more on international (that is, American) targets. Two weeks after Al Jazeera airs this video, the Navy destroyer USS Cole is attacked in Yemen.

Zawahiri would go on to lead the last remnants of al Qaeda with the killing of bin Laden in 2011. Taha was reported killed in a US drone strike in Syria in 2016.