Egyptian Islamic Jihad - Research Paper Example

Egyptian Islamic Jihad Introduction Al-jihad is an Egyptian based terrorist organization, which was formed in 1979 by an Egyptian Islamic extremist, Muhammad 'Abd Al-Salam Farraj (Orr, 2003). According to Farraj, the then Egyptian government and its leaders had digressed from the spirit of true Islam by refusing to apply Sharia law and instead promoting secular leadership. It is believed that Farraj was inspired by the teachings of two prominent Islamic leaders; Ahmed Ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb. According to Taymiyya, the evils in an Islamic society, whether social or political, cannot be purified without ensuring that authentic Islam is maintained. In order to achieve this, he advocated for the excommunication and killing of apostates and also the use of violence, Jihad, to protect the Islamic nation from the influence of non believers. In fact, he argued that Islamic Jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam and therefore western democracy had no place in Islam and every Muslim had the noble responsibility of fighting and dying for his or her religion (Orr, 2003). Similarly, Sayyid advocated for the use of violence and not political activism to overthrow the then Egyptian government, led by Sadat, which was perceived as being against Sharia law. After Sayyid’s death in 1966, Farraj and other likeminded persons felt that there was need to continue his ideology and this led to the subsequent formation of numerous antigovernment militant groups, al-Jihad being one of them (Orr, 2003). This paper is a critical evaluation of Al-Jihad as a terrorist organization. Al-Jihad Al-Jihad was founded in 1979 mainly as an organization to install Islamic rule and Sharia law in Egypt. Despite the country having Islam as the dominant religion, the then government, led by President Sadat, was perceived as being led by apostates due to its failure to adopt Sharia law despite the fact that the president himself had promised to do so (Tal, 2005). This had continued to raise the emotions of Islamists, who felt that they needed to remove him from power so as to install someone who would adhere to Islamic teachings. In addition, the government had continued to empower women by enacting laws to protect their civil rights thereby deviating from the norm whereby Islamic women were considered as inferior to men. Indeed, Saddat’s wife is noted as being one of the most recognizable champions of women’s rights in the country (Tal, 2005). Islamic extremists have always considered Israel as a country that should never have existed in the first place (Mark, 2002). Israel is a Jewish state, which was carved out of Palestine, with the help of the Americans and other European powers despite the fact that Palestinians owned more than 90% of the land before the partition. To make the matters worse, Israel had been involved in a territorial fight with Egypt and therefore it was and is still perceived as an enemy of the Muslim world especially Arab nations. Various Islamic terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, have included it in their manifestos as one of the countries that must be punished for its past and present injustices against Palestine and Palestinians (Flank, 2010). It is therefore not a wonder to find that the al-Jihadists in Egypt felt betrayed by President Sadat’s tour to Israel in 1977. The tour was meant to initiate peace talks between the two countries but it is believed that Sadat was trying to impress the western countries, especially the US, so that they can assist his government with funds to aid in strengthening the already ailing economy. Subsequently, the two countries, Israel and Egypt, came to an agreement to restore peace through the signing of the Captain David accords in 1978 (Flank, 2010). Consequently, al-jihad got fed up with him, especially after he ordered the arrest and prosecution of Islamist extremists, and decided to adopt a plan by one of the members, Khalid al-Islambouli, to assassinate him. Although Farraj opposed the idea at first, he later gave in thereby leading to Saddat’s death on October 6, 1981. The terrorists thought that eliminating Saddat would give them the liberty to take over the leadership of the country but as it emerged, they were not well equipped to withstand the wrath of the government forces. As a result, most of their attempts to capture major cities around the country were thwarted by security forces, which put up a spirited fight against them. This paved the way for the then vice president, Hosni Mubarak, to take over the presidency after which he embarked on a violent operation to suppress militant organizations in the country in an effort to protect his government. More than 300 persons, including Farraj and al-Islambouli were arrested in this operation after which some were sentenced to death while others were imprisoned for taking part in the planning and subsequent assassination of Saddat (Tal, 2005). It may be important to note that al-jihad was initially formed by combining two militant groups; one based in Cairo led by Farraj and another from upper Egypt, which was led by Karam Zuhdi. After the operation by Mubarak’s government to roundup members of this group, the two groups disintegrated due to the lack of leadership and constant disagreements on who to take over leadership. As a result, two factions were formed which included; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) consisting of Cairenes and al-Gamaa consisting of members from the former Zuhdi’s group. Abbud al-Zumar took over the leadership of the EIJ while al-Zawahiri took over the leadership of al-Gamaa (Nimisi, 2004). However, Zawahiri became the overall leader of EIJ in 1991, after Zumar lost control of the members, who felt that he had little to offer as he was serving life imprisonment in Egypt. Indeed, most of his followers had escaped to Afghanistan and Pakistan so as to avoid being harassed by Mubarak’s government. Prior to zawahiri’s taking over leadership, he had been a frequent visitor especially to Afghanistan, where Mujahedeen was actively involved in Jihadist activities, with the support and financing from Osama bin Laden (Nimisi, 2004). With these trips, Zawahiri had managed to assist the Afghan Jihadists with their operations and this motivated him to shift his base from Egypt to Afghanistan due to the favorable political climate. It is while in Afghanistan that he started regrouping former al-jihadist members, and recruiting more from Egypt, after which he disentangled himself and the group from Zumar. From that time, he has remained as the overall leader of the organization (Tal, 2005). Apart from the assassination of President Sadat in 1981, the terrorist organization has conducted numerous violent attacks both in and outside Egypt. To begin with, it is important to state that the perception of this group towards the Egyptian government did not change even after the death of Sadat. After Hosni Mubarak took over the presidency, he became an enemy of the al-jihadists through his use of violence to crush the group. He also became corrupt and continued to maintain status quo with regard to Sadat’s approach towards the west and therefore, he was branded as an apostate. Therefore, al-jihad felt that it had a responsibility of eliminating him and his political allies to pave way for an Islamic revolution (Orr, 2003). In 1993, the group was responsible for three attempted assassinations on 3 Egyptian ministers. In April 1993, the country’s information minister survived a suicide bomb attack orchestrated by the terrorists. A similar attack was attempted on the interior minister in August, due to his strong efforts to crush the organization. As if that was not enough, the Jihadists also tried to assassinate the then prime minister but he escaped unhurt as he was riding in an armored vehicle. However, the attack led to the death of a school girl and also the injuring of more than 20 people. This led to a massive public outcry and calls for the arrest and execution of the perpetrators, which compelled the government to embark on a violent campaign, resulting in the arrest of more than 200 members of the group after which 6 of them were executed (Orr, 2003). In 1995, the group, in conjunction with al-Gamaa, attempted to assassinate Mubarak as his motorcade was on its way from an Ethiopian airport to Addis Ababa, where he was supposed to attend a meeting with other African leaders (Turner, 1995). However, the president was driving in an armored vehicle and therefore, no bullets could penetrate and harm him. Immediately, the president ordered his driver to return to the airport, where he boarded a plane and flew back home. During this time, Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden were in Sudan, where they lived as fugitives under the protection of the Sudan government but after the assassination attempt, the United Nations pressured the country, through sanctions, to expel all Islamic militants within its jurisdiction. This forced Zawahiri, Osama and other al-jihad members operating from the country to go back to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Osama bin Laden, who was the major supporter of Islamic jihad in Afghanistan, depended highly on al-Jihad and their expulsion from Sudan was a blow to him as he was experiencing financial problems and therefore, he could not have met his objectives without a dedicated group such as al-Jihad (Tal, 2002). However, despite his worries, al-Jihad did not desert him and to prove their loyalty to their course, the terrorists conducted their first successful attack on the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan. Osama and Zawahiri also planned an attack on tourists visiting Egypt in 1997 whereby more than 60 people were killed in a less than an hour operation. The terrorists, dressed in police uniforms, used knives and machetes while others used guns to shoot their victims, in an operation, which ruined the country’s tourism industry as it destroyed the country’s image as a secure tourist destination. Zawahiri denied his group’s involvement but he thereafter claimed that the tourists deserved the attack as their presence was a defilement of the country’s soil. Majority of the victims were non Muslims and therefore, to al-Jihad, they were infidels (Tal, 2005). In 1998, Zawahiri merged informally with al-Qaeda, after which he, together with his associates, declared Jihad on Americans, Jews, and non-Muslims, who were in support of the war against Islamic militancy (Nimisi, 2004). This is believed to be the foundation for the subsequent bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in the same year. However, some of the members of al-Jihad saw this as a digression from their main agenda, which was to bring down the secular government in Egypt. As a result, some of them deserted the group but most of them remained loyal to Zawahiri especially because the organization was economically unstable and therefore, there was no other option other than to join al-Qaeda. In 2001, al-Jihad’s existence came to an end after it formally merged with al-Qaida to form a new, more vigorous terrorist outfit i.e. Qaeda al-jihad (Nimisi, 2004). Conclusion Al-Jihad is an Egyptian based terrorist organization, which was formed in 1979 by Farraj. Throughout its existence, it has always advocated for a violent Islamic revolution in Egypt, as a way of purifying the evils of the secular governments of Sadat and Mubarak. Though the group managed to kill Sadat in 1981, attempts to kill Mubarak never succeeded. Terrorist organizations such as al-Jihad claim that violence, Jihad, is the sixth pillar of Islam and therefore, it is the responsibility of every Muslim to attack and kill all non-Muslims and apostates. Al-Jihad has been associated with other terrorist organizations such as al-Gamaa and al-Qaida, with which it has engaged in numerous terrorist attacks. These are for example the assassination of Sadat, murder attempts on various prominent politicians in Egypt, bombing of Egyptian embassies and those of the US among others. The group merged formally with al-Qaida in 2001, after which it embarked on a mission to attack the US and other western countries and their associates. References Flank, L. (2010). The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Documentary History of the Struggle for Peace in Palestine. Red and Black Publishers Mark, G. (2002). Islam and Terrorism. Charisma House Nimisi, S. (2004). The Road to Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man. Pluto Press Orr, T. (2003). Egyptian Islamic Jihad: Inside the World's Most Infamous Terrorist Organizations. Rosen Publishing Group Tal, N. (2005). Radical Islam: In Egypt and Jordan. Sussex Academic Press Turner, C. (1995, July 27). Egypt's Leader Survives Assassination Attempt: Africa, Muslim Extremists Suspected in Attack on Mubarak's Motorcade in Ethiopia. President is Unharmed. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved http://articles.latimes.com/1995-06-27/news/mn-17703_1_president-mubarak Read More