Title: Islamic Jihad 'Confessions' Described

Document Number: FBIS-NES-1999-0309
Document Type: Daily Report
Document Title: FBIS Translated Text
Document Region: Near East/South Asia
Document Date: 06 Mar 1999
Division: Arab Africa
Subdivision: Egypt
Sourceline: MM0903100499 London Al-Sharq al-Awsat in Arabic 6 Mar 99 p 5
AFS Number: MM0903100499
Citysource: London Al-Sharq al-Awsat
Language: Arabic
N/A
Subslug: First of three reports by Khalid Sharaf-al-Din from Cairo: "Surprises
in the Trial of the Largest International Fundamentalist Organization in
Egypt. Abu-al-Dahab: My Mission Was To Attack the Turah Prison After
Dropping a Bomb from a Glider"

[FBIS Translated Text] In the second-biggest trial of fundamentalist
organizations in Egypt, since the Jihad Organization trial of 1981 that
followed the assassination of late Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, the
leading defendants being tried by the Higher Military Court at Haekstep
base north of Cairo gave new information about an international
organization whose policies were in accord with what has been attributed
to Bin-Ladin, especially in the matter of attacking US interests around
the world, particularly US embassies in the Middle East, Africa, and
Southeast Asia.
The Egyptian security services have continued their investigations in
the Returnees from Albania case throughout the past four months. More
than 20,000 pages of investigation report contain the defendants'
detailed confessions to the nature of their anti-regime activities,
violent acts inside Egypt, and plans to threaten the state's stability.
The defendants' confessions brought many surprises and details about the
violent groups' role, the extent of their activities abroad, and the
political ambitions they were pursuing through their banned activities.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat has read the investigation papers.
The first thread in this case came with the arrest of defendant Ahmad
Ibrahim al-Najjar in Albania, where he had fled after being sentenced to
death in the Khan al-Khalili case in 1994 [date as published]. Once
al-Najjar was captured, members of the organization began to fall one
after another. He revealed the names of a large number of his partners
and gave detailed information about the support he got from the Islamic
Jihad Organization's leaders, foremost among them Ayman al-Zawahiri,
'Adil 'Abd-al-Majid, and Tharwat Salah Shihatah, who lives in Britain.
Al-Najjar, who was sentenced to death in absentia in 1997 [date as published]
in the case of the attempt to blow up Khan al-Khalili in central Cairo,
said: The confrontation with the United States is a challenge that
concerns not only Ayman al-Zawahiri or Usamah Bin-Ladin but the entire
Islamic nation.
Al-Najjar is among the 12 defendants accused of membership in the Jihad
Organization who were extradited from Albania to Egypt last July. Another
defendant extradited from Bulgaria to Egypt is also being tried before
the court, whose sentences cannot be appealed.
Forty-three defendants are on trial in person and 64 are being tried in
absentia, among them Jihad leader Ayman al-Zawahiri (48 years old). He is
regarded as the right-hand man of Usamah Bin-Ladin, who is accused by the
United States of planning the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam explosions.
Thirty-nine of the defendants were arrested before and four others were
detained recently, but no announcement about this was made.
In his confessions al-Najjar propounded this fundamentalist group's
view of US moves in the Balkans. He believes that "though the United
States supports Bosnia's Muslims, it does not want to see jihad exist in
Europe because it fears that the presence of Islamic forces in the
Balkans would repeat what happened in Afghanistan."

Nonconventional Weapons [subhead]

The most controversial point in the confessions of the defendants from
the Albanian fundamentalist group was the confirmation that pro-Bin-Ladin
elements had obtained germ and biological weapons by post at a cheap
price. Factories in the former Eastern Europe supply viruses that cause
fatal diseases, such as E-Coli and Salmonella, without checking the
identities of the purchasers. The important thing for them is payment of
the invoice in advance. One of the organization's members secure an offer
to supply samples of anthrax gas [as published] and other toxic gases
from a factory in a Southeast Asian country. The germs were offered at a
price of $3,685, including shipping costs. A laboratory in Indonesia
exported serums to the Islamic Moro Front, which has close ties with
pro-Bin-Ladin groups and with Arab Afghans and Balkans [as published]. It
is believed that the Moro Front has large quantities of toxic gases.
In another part of the investigation the defendants said that a
laboratory in the Czech Republic had agreed to provide samples of the
lethal butolinum germ at $7,500 a sample. The laboratory did not query
the purpose for which this lethal substance would be used. The security
services' report on this point said that it is possible to use a
microscopic quantity of these viruses [as published] to kill hundreds of
people by inhaling it or eating contaminated food.
The security services monitored contacts that elements abroad made with
members inside the country to urge them to carry out new operations
against police officers with the aim of undermining security. The
security authorities exerted great efforts to monitor these elements and
succeeded in getting back 12 leading members from Albania, another group
from Arab and African countries, in addition to defendants seized in the
[Nile] Delta area as they were preparing to carry out new operations,
specially the al-Minufiyah group. The latter included 'Amr 'Ali, Sayyid
Jum'ah, Majid Muhammad Mulukhiyah, Muhammad 'Abd-al-Mu'min Yusri, 'Ali
'Abd-al-Raziq Abu-Shanab, Sa'id Muhammad 'Abd-al-Ghaffar, and Muhammad
'Abd-al-Mun'im, in addition to Ahmad Sayyid Ibrahim al-Najjar, who was
sentenced to death in the Khan al-Khalili case. Among the arrested
defendants were Jad Abu-Sari' al-Qannas, Samir al-'Attar, Sabri Ibrahim
al-'Attar, Mahmud al-Sayyid 'Abd-al-Dayim, Muhammad Husayn, Ashraf 'Ali
Isma'il, Samir 'Abd-al-Mun'im, Hasan Muhammad Hasan, 'Abdallah Muhammad
al-Bakri, Sayyid Muhammad 'Ali Mansur, Muhammad Muhammad Shalgham, 'Imad
Ahmad Hasanayn, 'Awad Hasan Mutawalli, Na'im 'Abd-al-Na'im, Hisham
Abazah, and 'Ali al-'Arif.
The investigations conducted by the security services and the Higher
State Security Prosecution Office with the defendants revealed a number
of new changes in the Islamic groups' ways of action and therefore the
means of confronting and monitoring them. The defendants' confessions
showed that the organizations adopted new mechanisms, most noticeably the
following:
They expanded the scope of their targets. They stopped limiting them to
Egyptian and Arab figures and installations and included the interests of
the major powers, specially US and French interests, because of their
involvement, according to the defendants, in the pursuit of the
organization's members inside and outside their territories. According to
defendant Sa'id Salamah's confessions, targeting these countries'
interests was bound to have a massive media value, and this would confirm
the organization's capabilities, which some quarters had begun to doubt.
They diversified the targets and did not limit them to the blowing up of
installations. This change included the kidnapping of figures and
hostages "so as to bargain with the ruling regimes and security services
for the release of the detained members of the Islamic Group [IG] or
other pro-loyal groups, as defendant Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar said in his
confessions.
They launched joint action with other groups and organizations, both
local groups and others operating outside their countries. They sought to
reduce the ideological and jurisprudential differences between the
various groups that were active in armed action. The defendants'
confessions revealed that coordination was indeed made between the main
groups of Jihad, the Vanguards of Conquest, the IG, and the groups that
split from it. Meanwhile, this new action was carried out under the
umbrella of what was called the Army for the Liberation of Islamic Holy
Places, which is reportedly led by Usamah Bin-Ladin, who has become the
highest organizational term of reference for all the jihad groups.
They refrained from targeting countries and areas that constituted safe
havens for these groups and where it was easy to move.
A Bomb From a Glider [subhead]
On the other hand, Egyptian judicial sources said that recently
arrested elements from the Jihad Organization involved in the case
intended to carry out an airborne landing operation to spring some of the
organization's leaders in Turah Prison south of Cairo. They said that one
of these elements, Khalid Abu-al-Dahab, who has both Egyptian and US
citizenship, confessed to the investigators interrogating the defendants
in the Albanian Arabs' case. He said that the organization's leaders
residing in Afghanistan had given him the task of planning an attack on
the Turah Prison to facilitate the escape of a number of IG leaders. No
date was set or preparations made for the plan, which involved dropping
explosives from an Adeltap [name as transliterated] glider to cause an
explosion in the prison. The aim was to create panic so that the glider
could then land near the cells where the Islamic Jihad members were
detained and release them. Most of the fundamentalist elements are kept
in this complex, which comprises five blocks where prisoners are held in
heavily guarded cells and is known as the al-'Aqrab Prison. Abu-al-Dahab
added that he learned how to fly this type of glider at a civil flying
school in San Francisco and had then gone to Afghanistan in the early
1990s where he trained three Jihad members to use it. He stressed that he
left Egypt for the United States in 1986 and joined the Albanian Arabs a
year later.

Al-Najjar's Confessions [subhead]

The confessions of the first defendant in the Albanian Arabs' case,
Ahmad Ibrahim al-Najjar, filled 143 pages that detailed the
investigations conducted by the Higher State Security Prosecution Office
before the whole case was referred to the military judiciary. He said
that he belonged to the second generation of the Jihad and IG alliance,
which was launched at the time by 'Abbud al-Zummar, Najih Ibrahim, and
Muhammad 'Abd-al-Salam Faraj with the blessing of Shaykh 'Umar
'Abd-al-Rahman. This alliance assassinated President al-Sadat in 1981
during the military parade that was held to commemorate Egypt's
celebrations of the October victory. He added that the military court
sentenced him at that time to three years in prison and that he had been
released at the end of 1984. Al-Najjar had not ceased his banned
organizational activities from the day he was released to this day.
Following his release, he revived the Jihad Organization in 1988 by
recruiting some members in the Nahiya [as transliterated] area in
al-Jizah governorate. But the Egyptian security services arrested his
group, which was then known as "Islamic Punishment" [al-Qasas al-Islami].
Al-Najjar tried to form another group after his release in order to carry
out armed operations and overthrow the regime. But he decided to flee
from Egypt for good after the security services discovered his extremist
group, which was planning to damage Egypt's economy by blowing up the
tourist quarter of Khan al-Khalili in the Holy al-Azhar area.
Al-Najjar went on to confess that he succeeded in entering Yemeni's
territories, where he lived in Sanaa for a short time during which he was
in contact with defendant Yusuf al-Jindi, the second man in the Khan
al-Khalili case, who remained in hiding before the Egyptian security
services arrested him. Al-Jindi lived in the Kirdasah [as transliterated]
area, west of Cairo. Contacts between al-Najjar and al-Jindi continued
throughout the former's stay in Sanaa until al-Jindi was discovered and
referred to the military court, which sentenced him to life imprisonment
with hard labor in Case No. 60 for the year 1994 -- military crimes.
During the trial, al-Najjar was deeply fearful that al-Jindi would reveal
his whereabouts and his role in the region and hence prompt the Egyptian
Government to ask the Yemeni authorities to extradite him. He decided to
flee from Sanaa to a European country and seek political asylum, as other
leaders of the organization had done in the past.

Escape From Yemen [subhead]

A preliminary reading of the policy followed by the Egyptian security
services to capture and chase this organization's members clearly shows
that these services pursued a new policy of pursuing the organization's
members outside Egypt's borders. They put into action mechanisms for the
extradition and exchange of criminals with most countries, including even
Ecuador and Uruguay. The latter recently extradited to Egypt Muhammad
'Abd-al-'Al, one of the IG leaders who was one of the perpetrators of the
attack on foreign tourists at the Hatshaput Temple in Luxor last year.
Going back to al-Najjar's confessions, he said: I knew that the Yemeni
Government had started full security cooperation with the Egyptian
authorities. I therefore decided to flee from Yemen to somewhere in East
Europe or Latin America. At that time I thought that one of the Jihad
leaders who has been a fugitive for a long time would help me do so. I
contacted brother 'Adil 'Abd-al-Majid, who had political asylum in
Britain and was living in London. It is known that 'Adil manages a press
office called the Office for the Defense of the Egyptian People, which he
uses to attack the Egyptian Government in anti-regime publications and
pamphlets. When I told 'Adil about the situation, he helped by sending me
$1,500 so that I could leave Yemen. I did succeed in doing so by using
forged travel documents and arrived in Albania [he said]. On his arrival
there, a new stage in organizational activity began to revive the Jihad
Organization, which had received heavy blows from the Egyptian Government
every time its leadership tried to revive it. According to al-Najjar's
recorded confessions in the investigation file, he worked as a teacher of
Arabic and religion after his arrival in Albania in a school belonging to
an Islamic charity. He succeeded in gaining the confidence of the
society's Muslim officials within few months and they let him manage the
society as a whole. During that period, he renewed contacts with the
organization's leaders in London and with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the
organization's leader abroad. Contacts with 'Adil 'Abd-al-Majid and
Tharwat Salah Shihatah were easy. He added: Telephone calls to
al-Zawahiri were very difficult and were held through an internet site.
The matter became even more complicated after al-Zawahiri's whereabouts
in Geneva, Switzerland, were discovered and he decided to escape to
another destination which was unknown even to al-Najjar. He said that the
organization's leaders have not abandoned their ideas and are still
working to establish a highly organized and well financed and planned
armed group to achieve their objectives of seizing power in Egypt. He
believes that they have maintained this objective since the coup planned
by Jihad in 1981 and despite the Egyptian Government's success in hitting
the organization and liquidating [as published] it.
Al-Najjar stressed in his confessions that al-Zawahiri was installed as leader
by the Jihad members abroad several years ago and that 'Abbud al-Zummar,
the former leader now carrying out a life sentence in the assassination
of President al-Sadat's case, is not the actual leader any more and has
no organizational authority.
This information explains the conflict between the organization's leaders
in prison and the fugitive leaders abroad over the initiatives to stop
acts of violence which were announced by the imprisoned leaders and
rejected by those abroad. Al-Najjar said: The Jihad's organizational
structure now is very complicated because a large number of its leaders
are living abroad, and those living in Egypt are keen not to endanger
themselves. He added that he did not know all the members or the nature
of their tasks but knew that Tharwat Shihatah, the lawyer who fled to
London, was in charge of security inside the organization and his
responsibilities included protecting members, information, and documents,
and dealing with attempts to infiltrate it. This is apparently the
organization's intelligence service, which is in charge of protecting the
organization and purging it. 'Adil 'Abd-al-Majid, who also fled to
London, is in charge of the social committee that takes care of members
inside and outside Egypt and provides the necessary funds for members
when they flee from Egypt or when they need funds for specific purposes
inside the country.