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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 April 1999 Issue No. 423
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Interview Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Light at the end of the tunnel?
By Khaled Dawoud
After nearly two years of dithering, reported internal splits and a worldwide crackdown led by the United States, Egypt's largest militant organisation, Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, issued a statement on 25 March announcing its decision to renounce anti-government violence.
"All units of Al-Gama'a inside and outside [Egypt], in response to the appeal made by Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman [the group's spiritual leader serving a life term in the United States], confirm their commitment to the initiative calling for a halt of armed operations which was made by respected leaders of Al-Gama'a from their Liman Tora [prison]," the statement said. It referred to a cease-fire call issued in July 1997 by six influential Al-Gama'a leaders, who are serving imprisonment sentences for their roles in the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat in 1981.
The appeal was rejected at the time by the Al-Gama'a's expatriate military commanders, who insisted on government concessions before any cease-fire. The expatriates managed to build an international network extending from Afghanistan, where the key military commanders are located, to former Soviet Islamic republics, Arab Gulf countries, Yemen and several European countries. The self-exiled military commanders masterminded and raised funds for their followers to carry out anti-government attacks back home.
In November 1997, four months after the cease-fire call, in a dramatic show of rejection, the military commanders ordered the brutal massacre in Luxor in which 58 tourists and four Egyptians died. The carnage further tarnished Al-Gama'a's image at home, intensified divisions within its ranks and prompted a number of European countries to cooperate with the Cairo government in tracking down key militant figures.
Following the attack, Interior Minister Hassan El-Alfi was replaced by Habib El-Adli, who introduced a new security strategy designed to tighten the grip on dozens of militants believed to be living in hideouts in southern provinces, such as Minya and Assiut. As the crackdown continued, the militants failed to stage any significant attacks in 1998. El-Adli also released hundreds of militants, who had been detained for years without being charged or put on trial. They were freed without the usual propaganda, so as not to give the impression that the government was giving in to the militants' demands. The treatment of imprisoned militants was said to have improved.
Meanwhile, the Luxor massacre encouraged what could be described as the "moderate" wing of Al-Gama'a to intensify its efforts to gain support for the cease-fire initiative. This campaign was spearheaded by lawyer Montasser El-Zayyat, who had been detained for seven months in 1995 for acting as Al-Gama'a's de facto spokesman. He and others inside Al-Gama'a maintain that violence did harm to the group and denied it the benefits of public activities which the government tolerated before the group took up arms in mid-1992.
In a recent interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, El-Zayyat said that a number of key figures inside Al-Gama'a conducted a religious study following the Luxor massacre and came to the conclusion that attacks against tourists ran counter to Islamic teachings. "There is a growing number of figures inside Al-Gama'a who have reached the same old conclusion that the use of violence against the government is not going to succeed and that working publicly is more beneficial to the group," El-Zayyat said.
Experts on militant organisations believe, however, that the turning point came with the US-led worldwide crackdown on the militants' activities following the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998. The deadly attacks were blamed on Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.
As a result, key militant figures were handed over to Egypt by Albania, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Pakistan. US intelligence organisations went as far as tracking down militants all the way to Latin America, leading to the detention of Egyptian Islamists in Uruguay.
Following the embassy attacks, El-Zayyat revived efforts to activate the cease-fire initiative. In his interview with the Weekly, El-Zayyat said that he scored a major success by gaining Sheikh Abdel-Rahman's support for his attempts to persuade the expatriate Al-Gama'a leaders to end the violence. "I believe that Sheikh Abdel-Rahman's support was a principal reason for the new position announced by Al-Gama'a leaders. They made this clear in their statement," El-Zayyat said.
He described the decision taken by Al-Gama'a leaders as a "difficult one taken at a difficult time." He said that a de facto cease-fire has been in force since February 1998 when the expatriates began a study of the jailed leaders' proposal.
In its statement, Al-Gama'a said that its decision to stop violence "did not mean in any way" that the group had altered its principles or renounced the struggle to establish a strict Islamic state by means of preaching and Jihad (struggling) for the sake of God "in accordance with Islamic Sharia [law]".
The group said it was particularly concerned about the fate of Sheikh Abdel-Rahman, who was imprisoned in 1996 for plotting a number of terrorist attacks in the United States. "Al-Gama'a did not forget, and will not forget, its leader, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is unjustly jailed in the United States, and we will act to save him, regardless of the time this may take and the sacrifices it may cost. We urge Muslims generally, and scholars in particular, to help in gaining the release of this venerable scholar," the statement said.
One of Al-Gama'a's early attacks, on secular writer Farag Foda, took place in June 1992. A few months later, Al-Gama'a issued a statement threatening attacks on tourists. The climax in the confrontation between the group and the government came in 1993-'95. Suspected Al-Gama'a members targeted key government officials, police officers, Coptic Christians and foreign tourists. In 1994, a suspected Al-Gama'a member attempted to assassinate Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz by stabbing him in the neck.
Former Interior Minister El-Alfi, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in 1993, enforced a heavy-handed policy in the crackdown against the militants. This policy resulted in limiting Al-Gama'a activities over the last three years to hit-and-run attacks against low-ranking policemen in southern Egypt. But the Luxor massacre proved that the militants, at that time, continued to have the capability to stage major attacks.
