15 - 21 November 2001
Issue No.560
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 15 - 21 November 2001 Issue No.560 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Militant Islamists, in Afghanistan and outside it, are feeling, and reacting to, the heat of the "war against terrorism". In three separate stories below, Khaled Dawoud reviews some of the developments, focusing on the Egyptian connection
Cutting the cord
Once a lifeline for journalists to Islamist militant groups the world over, Egyptian exile Yasser El-Serri now faces new terrorism charges
Hundreds of journalists covering political Islamist groups worldwide have been deprived for weeks of one of their most important sources: Yasser El-Serri, director of the Islamic Observation Centre (IOC), in London.
The 39-year-old Egyptian militant was arrested on 23 October and charged a week later with complicity in the murder of Afghan opposition commander Ahmed Shah Massoud on 9 September. El-Serri has also been accused of providing support for a banned organisation (Egypt's largest armed militant group, Al- Gama'a Al-Islamiya), procuring funds for the purposes of terrorism and publishing material likely to stir up racial hatred. After falling under pressure from Egypt and several Arab countries, Britain issued a list last year naming 20 groups dubbed by the British government as "terrorist" and banned their presence in Britain. Al-Gama'a, which was responsible for most acts of terrorist violence in Egypt between 1992 and 1997, was included on the list, along with Jihad, headed by close Bin Laden associate Ayman El-Zawahri.
On 7 November, a London court ordered El- Serri to be held in custody and adjourned his hearing to an unspecified date. However, a court official said the next session will be held in January, in order to give the prosecution time to prepare its case. As he was taken out of the courtroom, El-Serri told reporters: "There is no case against me. I will win."
After Massoud's assassination, El-Serri conceded that he did provide two Algerian journalists with accreditation letters in order to be able to conduct an interview with the deceased leader. However, he denied knowledge that they planned to kill Massoud by blowing up a video camera filled with explosives.
El-Serri fled from Egypt in 1988, taking a route well-worn by militants through Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and Sudan. He ended up in England, where he sought political asylum. In 1994, a military court in Cairo sentenced El-Serri in absentia to death for his alleged involvement in an assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Atef Sidki.
After his arrival in London eight years ago, El- Serri established the IOC, a home-run media centre in which he receives statements from armed militant groups in Arab countries, Kashmir and elsewhere and circulates them to news organisations all over the world. In a recent interview in London, El-Serri told Al-Ahram Weekly that his business was about to go under, but that using the Internet to disseminate the statements he received had revived his operations.
A rather quiet father of five, El-Serri was until recently confident that "British laws, and not the British government," provided him with enough protection to continue his activities in Britain. However, even before the 11 September attacks, the British government had changed its anti- terrorism laws in a way that would allow authorities to detain suspected members of terrorist organisations.
However, a London-based militant close to the IOC director told the Weekly that he thought El- Serri was arrested because of his strong opposition to the US-led war against Afghanistan. Since it became clear that the United States and Britain would lead attacks on Afghanistan, targeting the Taliban forces and Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, El-Serri's IOC was issuing daily statements sharply critical of the United States and Britain.
By the time the war began on 7 October, the IOC was sending reporters almost daily statements from inside Afghanistan, reflecting the Taliban's point of view and updating civilian losses among Afghans. The IOC also circulated fatwas, or edicts, by hardline Muslim scholars asking Muslims to declare a jihad against the United States.
"Britain and the United States are now dealing with us in a way that is no different from what we once faced in our home countries," said El- Serri's associate, who requested anonymity. "We are facing arrests over unfounded suspicions and we are not even allowed to freely express out point of view," he added.
In his interview with the Weekly in late December, El-Serri boasted that he had sources on militant activities in all Arab countries. Many a time has the IOC broken a story about the extradition of suspected militants to their countries of origin -- where they faced long prison terms or death -- from within Europe, Arab countries and even former Soviet republics like Azerbaijan.
El-Serri has not denied that he in contact with one of the key hardline figures of Al-Gama'a, Rifaie Ahmed Taha, who was the first to declare the group's responsibility for the brutal massacre of 58 tourists and four Egyptians in Luxor in 1997. Taha was reportedly Al-Gama'a's leader until 1998, when he resigned to protest a majority decision within the group to support the cessation of anti-government attacks. Since then, Taha has been issuing strongly critical statements of the Egyptian government through the IOC.
"Maybe he will be released after the war in Afghanistan is over," said El-Serri's associate. "But who knows when that is going to be? The only thing we know now is that we have to be careful with everything we say, as if we were living in Iraq," he added.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page