Inside Al-Qaeda: a window into the world of militant Islam and the Afghani alumni - Jan...

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28 September 2001
Jane's Security Digest Inside Al-Qaeda: a window into the world of
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militant Islam and the Afghani alumni
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By Richard Engel, Cairo and Amman
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The breeding grounds of militant Islamic terrorism span a
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host of different environments from the Afghan battlefields of
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the 1980s to places much closer to home. Richard Engel
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charts the careers of some of Bin Laden's converts and co-
conspirators, offering an insight into AI-Qaeda's inner
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workings.
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Sitting on a rooftop in a poor Cairo neighbourhood, 38-year-old
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Ibrahim recalled when he first met Osama bin Laden. It was 1983
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and Ibrahim was one of the leaders of the Gamaa Islamiya (Islamic
Jane's FastTrack Group), one of Egypt's two main Islamic militant organizations
Jane's Career Agent centred largely in southern Egypt around the town of Assiout.
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"I was one of the emirs (commanders) of the Gamaa Islamiya in
southern Egypt at the time in Assiout. I was at the university of
Assiout, the heart of the Islamic activism," said Ibrahim, who asked
not to be further identified. Ibrahim had spent several months at
one of Bin Laden's guerrilla training camps in Sudan learning how
to use Kalashnikov assault rifles and other light weapons.
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Now that his training was complete, it was time for Ibrahim to meet
his benefactor, Bin Laden. He travelled to the Saudi Arabian Foreign Report
capital, Riyadh, with a group of Islamic activists, most of them Sentinel Security
fellow university students. Assessments
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"We met Osama ibn bin Laden on an Islamic pilgrimage to Saudi
Arabia," said Ibrahim, using the traditional Islamic form of the Security Headlines
Saudi exile's name. "He was a devoted young man who, like any
young man, loved his religion. Then he changed and wanted there Islamic militants and
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to be Islamic movements all over the world, and he fled Saudi
Arabia and they stripped him of his citizenship." In a rare move, the
Saudi government revoked Bin Laden's nationality in April 1994, WHO gets new powers to
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despite the prominence of his wealthy family. His family, originally
from the southern Yemeni province of Hadhramaut, also publicly
disavowed him. A new way of projecting
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Ibrahim says he remembers bin Laden as both polite and well abroad will be reduced
educated. Bin Laden talked a lot, Ibrahim says, and although he
was prosperous, he dressed humbly and kept the company of Jane's and RUSI join forces
people with no money. and launch homeland
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http://www.janes.corn/security/intemational_security/news/misc/ianes0109.23u_l_n.shtml 6/19/03