Egypt's Zayat
says US destroyed al-Qaeda network whose leaders are trying to mobilize angry
young people.
"The Americans persist in saying al-Qaeda is still around to justify their
so-called war on terrorism, but I think al-Qaeda is dead," said Islamist lawyer,
Montasser el-Zayat.
Zayat, who claims he has e-mail contact with the network's number two, Ayman
al-Zawahiri, said the group was destroyed during the war in Afghanistan
following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
"They no longer have the territory on which they were based, the Taliban
government which supported them has been overthrown and the money they had in
their hands has been frozen," said Zayat, speaking in his Cairo office.
"Zawahiri knows there are angry young people and he's trying to mobilize
them," said Zayat, a former member of the underground Egyptian militant group
Jamaa Islamiya.
"That's what happened in Yemen, Kuwait, Bali, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and that
is what is going to happen in Egypt," he added, alluding to the bombings and
attacks that have occurred in all these countries, except Egypt.
"In January, a group of young Egyptians wanted to launch an attack against
the US embassy. Evidently, they had no organizational link with Zawahiri," he
said.
In January, the Egyptian authorities arrested 43 people who the government
daily Al-Ahram said belonged to the militant group Al-Jihad, which was led by
Zawahiri.
The group was sent before the military prosecutor on charges of having
"planned attacks against the American and Israeli embassies in Cairo."
Zayat suggested that Osama bin Laden made recent tapes attributed to the
al-Qaeda leader "to reassure his friends and supporters that he is still
present" amid rumors about his fate.
In two "messages", broadcast Saturday by Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden
threatens the United States and its allies with new attacks, denouncing their
deepening presence in Iraq.
Zayat, who was imprisoned between 1981 and 1984 for belonging to Jamaa
Islamiya, said that the Egyptian government is "playing cat and mouse" with the
banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, whose members are often arrested.
The Brotherhood, which wants to create an Islamic government without
resorting to violence, "are the real competitors" to President Hosni Mubarak's
ruling National Democratic Party, he said.
"In spite of the repression, it is impossible to eradicate the Islamist
movement," he added.
Zayat also admitted to having played an intermediary role between Jamaa and
the government, when the group called a halt in 1998 to a wave of violence which
claimed around 1,300 lives in the 1990s.
"No comment," he replied, when asked if he continued to play such a
role.
By Michel Sailhan - CAIRO
The United States has
destroyed the al-Qaeda network as an Islamic militant group but its leaders can
still spur "angry young people" into staging attacks worldwide, an Egyptian
lawyer said Monday.
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