Read Michael Weiss in the Telegraph today:
Well, here’s another dismal “unity” pact for you.
The Muslim Brotherhood has announced an electoral coalition with a host of Salafi groups in Egypt, under the banner of seeking an Islamic state. “It was the recent attacks on the Islamic groups that brought us together,” the Brotherhood’s lawyer Sobhi Saleh explained to an Egyptian newspaper on Tuesday.
Saleh’s newfound siege mentality is at odds with the confidence he displayed on Newsnight a few months back. A woman or a Christian, the Islamist attorney told Tim Whewell, could never be president of a post-Mubarak Egypt because Muslims constitute “95 per cent of the population” (not true) and this is the “same policy as in Greece, Spain and in England” (what’s the Arabic for “Iron Lady”?).
Among the Brotherhood’s new parliamentary partners is Jama’a al-Islamiyya, a Salafi group that played a role in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and recently advocated the formation of a Saudi-style “modesty police” for Egypt.
When this news item was posted yesterday, there was some suggestion in the comments that it might be mischief making, and that the report was:
largely a figment of the imagination of one of Egypt’s dodgiest newspapers, which cannot quite forgive the Egyptian people for removing Mubarak and the cozy relationship that organ had with his regime.
The newspaper in question is Al Masry Al Youm. It may have an axe to grind over this issue. However, it is treated as a respectable newspaper by news agencies like AFP, who re-report its stories. What is more, the story is reported in Arabic and seems not to have been denied by Sobhi Saleh, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman who is clearly a real and rather colourful figure.
On the other hand, different Muslim Brotherhood figures have repeatedly opposed and distanced themselves from Jama’a al-Islamiyya. So what is the truth? Are there possibly some Ikhwanis who are reaching out to Jama’a al-Islamiyya, while others are pushing them away? The political situation is pretty foggy.
What the Muslim Brotherhood does is important. As we’ve seen, it has decided not to run for the Presidency, preferring to use the first few rocky years of the post-Mubarak era to deepen its roots, Hamas style, within Egyptian society. Nevertheless, having initially declared that they would contest no more than 30% of the seats in the Egyptian Parliament, they have now announced that they’ll be standing for 50%.
Will they win? Will other liberal democratic and progressive forces challenge them successfully? Many of my friends say that the popularity and cohesion of the Muslim Brotherhood is overstated, and that the organisation will splinter. I hope they’re right.
This is what the likely next President of Egypt reportedly said in the Wall Street Journal:
“Mr. Moussa, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, also described a political landscape in which the Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed under Mr. Mubarak, is dominant. It is inevitable, he said, that parliamentary elections in September will usher in a legislature led by a bloc of Islamists, with the Brotherhood at the forefront.”
Here is another significant sign of the times.
Al Masry Al Youm also is said, by MEMRI, to have reported that the Imam of Al Azhar has made an appeal to the US, to release the “Blind Sheikh”, imprisoned in relation the first World Trade Center bombing:
The sheikh of Al-Azhar, Dr. Muhammad Al-Tayeb, said that intense efforts are being made to arrange the release of Sheikh ‘Omar ‘Abd Al-Rahman, known as the Blind Sheikh, a member of the Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyya organization who has been imprisoned in the US since 1996 for involvement in the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center. Al-Tayeb said that the coming days will see a breakthrough in this matter. Tomorrow (April 21) a demonstration is to be held in front of the US embassy in Cairo in demand for the sheikh’s release
Al Rahman is the spiritual guide of Jama’a al-Islamiyya. Read Michael Weiss’ piece for a list of its more bloody achievements.
Al-Tayeb is a Mubarak appointee, and considered to be a moderate. He has spoken out against Salafis in the past. So, unless Al Masry Al Youm are lying about this as well, it is pretty important . I’d be interested in informed analysis as to why he might have made such a statement. He must think it is in his interests to do so.
There’s one other related development. The IPT, citing a closed US Government website for government employees, says:
The Egyptian government reportedly has asked the United States to release the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, and send him back to Egypt, according to the Open Source Center, a government clearinghouse of publicly available foreign intelligence.
Abdel-Rahman is the former spiritual leader of the Egyptian terrorist organization, Gama’a al-Islamiyya. He is considered the spiritual inspiration behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and is serving a life sentence in connection with a subsequent plot to bomb New York landmarks and tunnels.
But his continued imprisonment could spur anger in Egypt and other Islamic states, said his son, Abdallah Abdel-Rahman. Keeping his father in custody would show that the United States did not seek to combat terrorism, but rather sought war on Islam.
He asked Egyptian officials to make a similar request, and an official at the Egyptian Ministry of Justice indicated that had been done. The official recommended Abdallah Abdel-Rahman make his own request to the U.S. government for his father’s repatriation since the two countries have no joint agreement for the exchange of prisoners.
The Egyptian Government has released a number of Salafi jihadi prisoners, so it is not entirely implausible that an Egyptian Government officer – some officer, at some level – has made such a request of the United States. The chance of the US freeing a man connected at the highest level to a major terrorist campaign is close to zero. However, it is remarkable to see such a request even being made, particularly in light of the funding which the Egyptian Government receives from the USA.
A friend is checking this report, and I’ll let you know if it is true.
Is this all black propaganda to try to undermine external perceptions of the Egyptian Revolution? If these stories are false, and if it is true that Al Masry Al Youm is making them up, then that will be an important story in itself.
As things stand, in the United Kingdom, the so-called Islamic Human Rights Commission believes that these official requests for the release of this terrorist guru have been made. Indeed, they’re campaigning for the Blind Sheikh themselves, and encouraging its supporters to take part in letter writing campaigns.
It goes without saying, by the way, that the Islamic Human Rights Commission is funded by the Quaker charity, the Joseph Rowntree Trust, who also fund Moazzam Begg’s salafi jihadi lobby group, CagePrisoners.
UPDATE
The Financial Times carries an interview with Naguib Sawiris, the Coptic Egyptian telecoms magnate, who is founding a non sectarian party, the Free Egyptians, to mobilise the liberal and secular vote.
The article confirms the relationship between the Ikhwan and the Salafis:
Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood group are expected to emerge as the largest bloc in the assembly after September’s elections. The Brotherhood condemns sectarian attacks against Christians and says it is committed to the protection of minority rights.
But it has also been trying to woo the ultra-conservative Salafi vote ahead of the election. Thousands of people attended a rally in Cairo this week addressed jointly by Brotherhood officials and Salafi sheikhs.
Mr Sawiris said it would take “a miracle” for new liberal parties such as his to do well against the Brotherhood. After the legal dissolution of Mr Mubarak’s party, the group is regarded as the best organised political force in the country and the only one sufficiently prepared to fight the September elections.
“It is an unfair fight,” he said. “They are already organised, and they already have their members, branches and candidates.”