Everything about Omar Abdel Rahman totally explained
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (
Arabic: عمر عبد الرحمن) (born
May 3,
1938) is a blind
Egyptian
Muslim leader who is currently serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center which is part of the
Butner Federal Correctional Institution in
Butner, North Carolina,
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
World Trade Center 1993 bombings.
Abdel-Rahman is the leader of
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (also known as "The Islamic Group"), a
militant Islamist movement in
Egypt that's 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 that the United States "certainly will kill me" in jail.
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
Al-Azhar University in
Cairo, the Egyptian government imprisoned him because he was an opponent of the regime. Abdel-Rahman became one of the most prominent and outspoken Muslim clerics to denounce Egypt’s secularism.
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'd 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
Ayman al-Zawahiri, later to become an
Al Qaeda principal. Abdel-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.
Afghan mujaheddin
Although Abdel-Rahman wasn't 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 clandestine
CIA and
ISI efforts to defeat the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Rahman travelled all over the world for five years recruiting new
mujahideen for the Afghan war.
In July 1990, Rahman went to
New York City to gain control of MAK’s financial and organizational infrastructure in the
United States.
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.
He traveled widely in the United States and Canada. Despite the U.S. support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, Abdel-Rahman was deeply anti-American and spoke out against it, safe in the knowledge that he was speaking Arabic and unmonitored by any law enforcement agency. He issued a
fatwa in America that declared lawful the robbing of banks and killing of Jews in America. His sermons condemned Americans as the "descendants of apes and pigs who have been feeding from the dining tables of the Zionists, Communists, and colonialists". He called on Muslims to assail the West, "cut the transportation of their countries, tear it apart, destroy their economy, burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air, or land".
Preaching at three mosques in the New York City area, Abdel-Rahman was soon surrounded by a core group of devoted followers that included persons who became responsible for the
World Trade Center 1993 bombings. One of Rahman's followers was linked to the shooting death of
Rabbi Meir Kahane. An Egyptian,
El Sayyid Nosair, assassinated Rabbi Kahane in
1990 after Rabbi Kahane delivered a speech at a New York City hotel. Nosair was acquitted by the jury on the murder charge, however he was found guilty on other charges and sent to prison. 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 edifice on the New York City skyline was 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 Trade Center bombing in February 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. (See
New York City landmark bomb plot.) Government prosecutors showed videotapes of defendants mixing bomb ingredients in a garage before their arrest in 1993. Rahman was arrested on
June 24,
1993, along with nine of his followers. On
October 1,
1995, he was convicted of seditious conspiracy, and in 1996 was sentenced to life in prison.
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.
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