By Adel Darwish.
London - 15 Feb 2002
The Mastermind behind The Islamists terror campaign is Egyptian born physician
Iyman El-Zawahiri ( El-Zawahiri ), reportedly recruited Osama Bin Laden himself
- the world number one wanted terrorist- to the cause of a global Islamic
revolution against the West, was involved in the 1981 assassination of President
Anwar Sadat of Egypt, lived in Europe and toured the United States in 1995
raising funds for terrorist activities, according to intelligence reports.
Dr el-Zawahiri, a master of disguise who travelled on French, Swiss, Dutch,
Saudi, Pakistani and Egyptian false passport, with many names and faces that he
is nicknamed ' Carols of the Islam' - after Carols the Jackal who was on the run
for 25 years. He became the leader of Harakt al-Jihad al-Islami (the
Movement for Islamic Sacred Action MIA) - known incorrectly
by the media as Jihad - in 1991, and is now the second man in Al-Qaeda
after its 1998 union with a disaffect section of MIA.
Dr Zawahiri , severed a three year sentence in Egypt after he was found guilty
by a Cairo court in 1982 for conspiracy to murder in planning the assassination
of President Sadat a year earlier, He lived for a while in Europe, in Germany,
Yugoslavia and possibly in Britain under a false name after participating in the
Bosnia war in the 1990, according to three intelligence agencies.
Ironically, the British governments turned down requests by Egypt's Intelligence
Service Mukhabarat and State Security Intelligence
Mabaheth, to extradite a number of suspected terrorists, including Adil
Abdel-Maguide who knew, in the early 90's of the where of Dr Zawahiri whom
they believed to be living in Britain, at the time, under a false identity.
''The Germans were not too cooperative either,'' said an Egyptian intelligence
source, '' at a time when Germany was the main base for Bin Laden's al-Qaedah
organisation.''
The Egyptians were angry, as one of the requests coincided with Mukhabart's
agents arriving in London to assist their British counterpart in their search
for terrorists who exploded a bomb outside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington in
1993. ' The [British] Foreign Office refusal was arrogant and insulting,' one
Egyptian agent told MideastNews , ' they dismissingly said
Britain was a democracy and the [ wanted] Islamists broke no British laws.''
Both Scotland yard and MI6 at the time, insisted that Dr Zawahiri was not
in Britain but ' somewhere else in Europe' adding that Mr Abdel-Maguid, who,
ironically, established an advisory centre on human rights abuse in London ,
broke no English laws.
A MIA representative in Britain, Mr Abdel Maguid advertised a conference in
1994 for the movement in Switzerland to be addressed by Dr Zawahiri , sending
intelligence services on a wild goose chance, while the disguised doctor made
his way to Yemen, where some of Osama Bin Laden training camps were located.
It was then the first contact between him and Iraqi intelligence officers
offering money and haven to the group in exchange for carrying out
operation on behalf of Saddam Hussein and some Iraqi presence in Afghanistan.
Other meeting with Iraqi agents took place in Jordan, Yemen, Sudan and in
Afghanistan.
In 1995, he managed to travel to the United States under the name Dr Mohammed
Abdel Muez where he spent several months raising funds and meeting Islamic
leaders who were not aware of his identity. Some of the funds, according to
Egyptian Intelligence files, were used to blow up the Egyptian Embassy in
Islamabad a few months later.
The information, used as evidence, was presented by Khalid Abu-Eldhahab, a
prosecution witness in a Cairo trial in 1999 called the case of '' the
Returnee from Albania '' who were Dr Zawahiri men.
Ironically, neither Mr Bin Laden no Dr Zawahiri were on the wanted list in
the US in 1995.
' I don't believe for one second that the CIA, or MI6 didn't know the movements
of Zawahiri or Bin Laden on those days as they claim, ' said an agent of
one Gulf State Intelligence Service, ' They [ CIA & MI6] have been in touch with
them since they lived in Jeddah.' After serving two thirds of his sentence
in Egypt in 1985, Dr Zdhwahry moved to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, according to the
same agent, who says his agency has been monitoring large donations from big
Sheiks and some princes in the Arab Gulf, which led Saudi Arabia to issue a law
in 1999, forbidding donations to Islamic charities outside the country except
via the government who vets them.
According to same agent, Dr Zawahiri left Jeddah a year later for Peshawar in
Pakistan where he was helped by the CIA to get arms, training and money for his
followers to join the Mujahedine - anti Russian rebels in Afghanistan.
' The CIA where aware of who he was and his involvement in the assassination of
President Sadat,' the agent said, ' but they gave him and his men new identities
and new passports.' The story was confirmed yesterday by Egyptian intelligence
sources.
Dr Zwahiri , a graduate of Cairo Medical school, was born 1951 to an Egyptian
aristocratic family, his paternal grandfather was the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar (
head of the Muslim church ) and his maternal grandfather Abdel-Wahab Azzam was
Egypt ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. He already had many contacts in
both nations because of his maternal
grandfather, according to his great uncle Mahfouz Azzam.
Named after his grandfather as head of al-Azhar, his name impressed Mr
Bin Laden, who was just starting to leave playboy image behind - Bin laden was
reportedly very drunk and behaved so badly in 1985 at a reception held at the
Dorchester in Park Lane for a reunion of the graduates of his old ' British'
public school, that he was thrown out by the organisers.
But it was Zawahiri , that got Bin Laden to ' see the light ' and drowned him
with books and early writing on Islam. Later, after the end of the Afghan war,
Dr Zwahiri persuaded Bin Laden to broaden the fight against ' America and the
Jews' by moving to Sudan to fight the Egyptian secular government.
All travelled on false passport provided by ' friendly Gulf government on the
CIA advice after Pakistan threw them out' according to on Gulf intelligence
service
Dr Zawahiri is soft spoken, calm and very convincing, according a report
by an Egyptian psychotherapists who worked within a programme to rehabilitate a
number of former Islamic terrorist, and met Dr Zawahiri a few times in his
jail in south Cairo in 1984. '' He has calm voice and manner of a teacher who
would immediately gain your confidence,' said the psychotherapist's report.
In fact, in one conversation he managed to recruit his younger brother Mohammed,
to the cause and sent him to lead a group of Al-Qaedah fighters in Albania who
fought both in Bosnia and Kosovo. The brother is now in jail in Egypt, although
the Egyptians refused to confirm or deny, but they too insist that both the CIA
and British intelligence had full knowledge of Dr
Zawahiri and his obsession with an International Islamic Movement.
'Dr Zawahiri cool manners hid behind them a devilish mind of a ruthless
killer who would design plans for mass murders, and convince his followers to
execute them with clear conscience,' said the psychotherapist in his report to
the Egyptian jail authorities. The psychiatrist thinks it is likely that Dr
Zawahiri was the mastermind who recruited the suicide bombers to fly the
aircraft into the World Trade Centre Towers and kill themselves.
He is a cult leader, and ruthlessly liquidated any other leader that would
emerge in the group, said the report also indicating that many of his followers
lied and sacrificed themselves during the trial to protect him, hence was his
light sentence.
''Only in 1998 that the CIA got interested in him,'' said one Egyptian agent,
referring to Dr Zawahiri's and Bin Laden's February 1988 declaring of
forming the ' The International Front to Combat Jews and Christians'' .
The IFCJC first spectacular deadly terrors attacks were the blowing up of
American Embassies in Nairobi and an Dar-es-Salaam in summer 1998.
In 1999 he split, along with a handful of his faithful followers, from MIA
after he refused that Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahaman - who is serving a life sentence
for attempting to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993 in US - should be the
leader of the organisation accusing the Sheikh of being '' too ignorant, too
emotional and too soft when punishing infidels.''
end