Of course it is...both the blind sheik Abdel Rahman (bin Laden's mentor) and Abdul Azzam his erstwhile partner,were Muslim Brotherhood members, as well as Hassan Turabi who brought together bin Laden, Mugniyah, the Iranians, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and other members of al-Qaeda in Khartoum in 1995.
Bruce French Commentary: Muslim Brotherhood Plays Key Role in International Terrorism Paris Le Figaro (Internet Version-WWW) in French 29 Jul 05 [Commentary by Radio France Internationale editorialist Richard Labeviere: "Muslim Brotherhood Behind Al-Qa'ida"] The Al-Qa'ida bubble has deflated considerably since the Madrid attacks (11 March 2004.) The first explosions in London (7 July 2005) dealt it a decisive blow. Last, those in Sharm Al-Shaykh (23 July 2005) have refocused the inquiries pursued during the past several decades into the historical background of contemporary jihadism, namely, the Muslim Brotherhood. Rather than attributing this series of attacks, which do not represent an operational continuum, to some hypothetical "European pillar" of Al-Qa'ida, or to an "Iraqi pillar" that is no more relevant, investigators have been concentrating for several years, but particularly since Madrid, on the international structure, or the international apparatus, of this Egyptian brotherhood, which emerged in the late 1920s. Developed on the basis of organizations representing the peasantry of Upper Egypt, this movement, based on a strict interpretation of the founding texts of Sunni Islam, was also much influenced by the corporatist ideology that was also behind Mussolini's Fascism. It is partly for this reason that the brotherhood initially organized on the basis of the sectors of economic activity in the hands of a small bourgeoisie opposed to the "free officers" that overthrew King Faruq, including Jamal Abd-al Nasir, who was to become the embodiment of a secular and keenly Marxist-type Arab nationalism. This historical background, encouraged and financed from the outset by Saudi Arabia's King Faysal would by the end of the 1970s produce more radical groups of students advocating recourse to armed struggle --Jemah Islamiyah and the Jihad, authors of President Anwar al-Sadat's assassination 6 October 1981. Apart from the death sentencing issued to five leading activists in 1982, the approximately 200 other Muslim brothers indicted -- who constantly proclaimed their Islamist convictions throughout the trial -- were eventually released without further process. Following this amnesty, as hasty as it was uncontrolled, most of these activists left Egypt for Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Horn of Africa, the Africa of the Sahel, and the Maghreb. It was this dispersal of the veteran jihadists that lay behind the formation of Bin Ladin's nebula until the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, and the lasting establishment of jihadist hotbeds in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. Apart from the historical background of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its reconfiguration, and apart from the Saudi financial epicenter, investigators now favor a third lead in Pakistan, along three axes -- the cross-border tribal areas of Afghanistan; the Kashmiri focus of conflict with India; and last, the port metropolis of Karachi, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, harboring some 250 madrasas (Koranic schools) daily teaching religious hatred to "students" aged 4-70. Following the bombardments in Kosovo and Serbia, following all the interventions decided on by the UN Security Council, following the US-British "coalition" in spite of the United Nations, how is it possible to justify the marginalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the innumerable civilian victims of the second Iraq war? The jihad factories find their symbolic legitimization in the imbalance, or iniquity, of the political and diplomatic handling of numerous international crises, among which the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation is in the forefront. Since 1948 this conflict has generated over 400 UN Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Commission resolutions, without any of these texts being implemented in the very least. The second Iraqi war and the lasting establishment in the country of Western troops, including 140,000 US soldiers, as well as increasing numbers of military bases throughout the region, as far as Central Asia, constitute the second symbolic reference point for the new jihadists. Last, the Chechen conflict completes this triptych, the foundation of the civilizational split and the pretext for all kinds of crusades. From this viewpoint, these aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology present disturbing analogies with the deadly projections of the US neoconservatives. Without ever setting themselves within the historical perspective of national and post-colonial crises, the Muslim Brotherhood's preachers active in Europe exploit them as they please, in order to pursue the erection of a wall of incomprehension between immigrant Muslim communities and the rest of the populations, described as a jumble of hostile infidels working to annihilate the faithful. So it is hardly surprising to see these same preachers now flocking to London, demanding that their fellows in religion abide by the laws of their host countries, while continuing privately to issue orders for them not to integrate, as so many roads to salvation. Far from representing the majority of the Muslim communities, the brotherhood still functions in a sectarian fashion, whereby knowledge is mixed inextricably with a power to influence and do damage. Its community objectives are reminiscent of the great waves of sorcery and possession, such as that which invaded Europe at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. And antiterrorist investigators now would do well to examine Michel de Certeau's "The Possession at Loudun," deciphering the arguments according to which sectarianism, on the way to becoming a social movement, reveals the symptoms of a society worried about its own foundations and goals. "Linked to a moment," Michel de Certeau concludes, "that is, to the transition from religious criteria to political criteria (...), the possession at Loudun thus also connects (...) to the question that arises with the emergence, different from the devilry of the past but just as worrying, of the new social expressions of the other." Now that the Al-Qa'ida smokescreen is starting to fade, can we perhaps at last start thinking about and responding to the ideological and practical strategies of the Muslim Brotherhood? ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12h6bu6jb/M=362329.6886306.7839369.3040540/D=groups/S=1705323667:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1122992287/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. 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