Omar Abdel-Rahman
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Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (Arabic: عمر عبد الرحمن) (born May 3, 1938) is a blind Egyptian Muslim cleric who is currently serving a life sentence at the Federal Administrative Maximum Penitentiary hospital in Florence, Colorado, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of "Seditious Conspiracy," which requires only that a crime be planned, not that it necessarily be attempted. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Abdel-Rahman is the leader of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (also known as The Islamic Group), a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Egyptian governments. The group is responsible for many acts of violence, including the November 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians were killed.
Abdel-Rahman has declared the United States "certainly will kill me" in jail[1].
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[edit] Youth
Abdel-Rahman was born in Egypt in 1938 and lost his eyesight at a young age due to childhood diabetes. He studied a Braille version of the Qur'an as a child and developed an interest in the works of the Islamic purists Ibn Taymiyah and Sayyid Qutb. After graduating in Qur'anic studies from a Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Rahman became one of the most prominent and outspoken Muslim clerics to denounce Egypt’s secularism.
[edit] Prison in Egypt
During the 1970s, Abdel-Rahman developed close ties with two of Egypt’s most militant organizations, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group). By the 1980s, he had emerged as the leader of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, although he was still revered by followers of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which at the time was being led by future Al Qaeda principal Ayman al-Zawahiri. Rahman spent three years in Egyptian jails where he was severely tortured as he awaited trial on charges of issuing a fatwa resulting in the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat by Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
[edit] Afghan mujaheddin
Although Abdel-Rahman was not convicted of conspiracy in the Sadat assassination, he was expelled from Egypt following his acquittal. He made his way to Afghanistan in the mid-1980s where he contacted his former professor, Abdullah Azzam, co-founder of Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) along with Osama bin Laden. Rahman built a strong rapport with bin Laden during the Afghan war against the Soviets and following Azzam’s murder in 1989, Rahman assumed control of the international jihadists arm of MAK/Al Qaeda.
Rahman also was closely tied to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and was heavily involved with and clandestine CIA and ISI efforts to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Rahman travelled all over the world for five years recruiting new mujaheddin for the Afghan war.
In July 1990, Rahman was sent to New York City to gain control of MAK’s financial and organisational infrastructure in the United States.
[edit] Activities in the US
Abdel-Rahman was issued a tourist visa to visit the US despite his name being listed on a US State Department terrorist watch list. Rahman entered the United States, in July 1990, via Saudi Arabia, Peshawar, and Sudan.
Preaching at three mosques in the New York area, Abdel-Rahman was immediately surrounded by a core group of devoted followers that included persons responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. One of Rahman's followers was linked to the shooting death of Meir Kahane. An Egyptian, El Sayyid Nosair, assassinated Kahane in 1990 after Kahane delivered a speech at a New York City hotel. Nosair also was associated with the cell that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. From their Journal Square, Jersey City mosque the most prominent part of the New York sky line were the Twin towers of the World Trade Center. The cell is also suspected in the murder of MAK’s New York manager Mustafa Shalabi.
After the first World Trading Center bombing in 1993, the FBI began to investigate Rahman and his followers more closely. With the assistance of an Egyptian informant wearing a listening device, the FBI managed to record Rahman issuing a fatwa encouraging acts of violence against US civilian targets, particularly in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area. The most startling plan, the government charged, was to set off five bombs in 10 minutes, blowing up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the George Washington Bridge and a federal building housing the FBI. Government prosecutors showed videotapes of defendants mixing bomb ingredients in a garage before their arrest in 1993. Rahman was arrested in 1993 along with nine of his followers. In October 1995 he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and was sentenced to life in prison.
[edit] A continuing influence
Abdel-Rahman’s imprisonment has become a rallying point for Islamic militants around the world, including Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. In 1997, members of his group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya conducted two attacks against European visitors to Egypt, including the massacre of 58 tourists at Deir el-Bahri in Luxor. In addition to killing women and children, the attackers mutilated a number of bodies and distributed leaflets throughout the scene demanding Rahman’s release.
In 2005, members of Rahman’s legal team, including attorney Lynne Stewart, were convicted of facilitating communication between the imprisoned Sheikh and members of the terrorist organization Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya in Egypt.
According to the FBI, as of December 14, 2006 Abdel-Rahman has fallen ill and "his death may lead to terror attacks against the United States." He had a small tear in his esophagus and was treated with a "needed transfusion to replace lost blood," said the FBI bulletin to staffers. Radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, 68, spat up blood on December 6 and was rushed to a hospital, the FBI notice said. Medical personnel then discovered the cleric had a tumor on his liver, the FBI said. Al Quintero, a public information officer for the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, said Abdel-Rahman remained at the hospital for five days. "His condition improved, and he was returned back to prison on December 11, where he remains in stable condition," Quintero said. The FBI bulletin includes what it said was Abdel-Rahman's last will and testament distributed at an al Qaeda news conference in 1998: "My brothers, if they kill me -- which they will certainly do -- hold my funeral and send my corpse to my family but do not let my blood be shed in vain. Rather extract the most violent revenge."
[edit] References and notes
[edit] See also
- Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman
- Ahmed Abdel-Rahman
[edit] References
- Gunaratna, R. 2002 ‘Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror’. Scribe Publications: Carlton.
- Lance, P. 2003 ‘1000 Years For Revenge: International Terrorism and The FBI’. HarperCollins: New York
[edit] External links
- Paul DeRienzo's jail house interview with Rahman
- Civil rights attorney convicted in terror trial CNN.Com
- Bin Laden’s 1996 Fatwa PBS.Org
- Smuggling The Sheikh's Messages Smoking Gun archive.
- Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman (The Blind Sheikh) Releases Letter from Prison Analysis from the SITE Institute.
- MIPT Biography
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