Last updated: 20/06/2011 | 23:24 |  

Ayman Al Zawahiri (Getty Images)

As the struggle to succeed Osama bin Laden begins, Anthony Tucker-Jones charts the rise of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and its hold over al-Qaeda

While the diplomatic fallout continues to resound around the world after America killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil at the beginning of May 2011, the real challenge is predicting who will take command of al-Qaeda and avenge his death. Most of bin Laden’s lieutenants have been killed or captured over the past decade and his remaining inner circle languishes at Guantanamo Bay.

While Pakistani, Somalia and Yemeni Islamic militancy has very much been to the fore in recent years, it is Egyptian Islamists who always wielded the most influence at the very heart of al-Qaeda. Egyptian Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, long regarded as bin Laden’s deputy, is considered by many to be the heir apparent. Some, though, argue he lacks the charisma of Osama bin Laden.

Nevertheless, al-Zawahiri has a very unsavoury track record. He was involved in the attempted assassination of President Mubarak and in the attack on the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad in the mid-1990s (the latter was Egyptian Islamic Jihad’s first success under his leadership). This was followed by the Luxor massacre, and he was also implicated in the Red Mosque siege in Pakistan.

What of bin Laden’s family? Osama left more than 20 children, none of whom are likely to succeed him. Twenty-two-year-old Khalid (the second child of bin Laden’s fourth wife) was killed with his father in Abbottabad. Hamza (by his third wife), who is of a similar age, is known as a bit of a player (he was involved in a plot to kill Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan) and has rather melodramatically been dubbed “the crown prince of terror”. He left a trail of video evidence showing he was hiding out in Pakistan. Washington initially announced he had been killed with his father, but subsequently clarified that it was Khalid. It has since emerged that Hamza was at Abbottabad but escaped and remains a fugitive.

Only Mohammed, bin Laden’s sixth son who is 27 (and married to Mohammed Atef’s daughter), has shown any “promise”. His fourth son, and originally first choice for the leadership, was 31-year-old Omar, until he denounced his father’s violent ways. Omar, recalling, his father’s qualities noted he “was not an affectionate man... nothing sparked warmth... he has always been a man that no other man can control”. Omar also claimed his father was very pious and loved the outdoors, had a sharp brain with a “phenomenal” memory and was good at mathematics.

When Osama bin Laden transferred his operations from Saudi Arabia to Sudan, the two key Egyptian organisations – al-Zawahiri’s al-Jihad and Omar Abdel Rhaman’s al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya Group – went with him. It was while he was in Afghanistan, however, that he really came into regular contact with the hardcore Egyptian Jihadists comprising Mohammed Atef, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Ubaidah al Banshiri, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah and Omar Abdel Rahman. Just after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan on 24 November 1989, bin Laden’s Palestinian mentor, Abdullah Azzam, was blown up; many held al-Zawahiri responsible.

“My favourite of all my father’s men was Mohammed Atef,” recalled Omar. When Omar met him he was an ex-policeman and a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, as well as a close friend of Osama’s. Atef liked to be known as Abu Hafs or “father of Hafs” (honouring a son he never had). Omar bin Laden also claimed his father had very little contact with Taliban leader Mohammed Omar, despite their alliance. Egyptians Mohammed Atef, bin Laden’s operations chief, Tariq al-Sayyid Ahmad and Mohammad Saleh were all killed in Afghanistan in 2001. Omar Abdel Rhaman, implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, is serving life imprisonment in America.

Other than al-Zawahiri there are few candidates to step into the leadership void. The brutal Jordanian leader of al-Qaeda in-Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is long dead. Ironically, al-Zarqawi was one of the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) recruits during the President Zia years. The Libyan al-Qaeda ideologue Abu Yayha al-Libi, although experienced and in his forties, can never replace Osama bin Laden. He escaped detention in Afghanistan in 2005 and four years later was misreported as being killed in a drone attack. American-born Anwar al-Awlaki, as the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who is hiding out in Yemen and again is in his forties, might step up.

This leaves al-Zawahiri, whose upper middle class family comes from Maadi, a suburb of Cairo. In his early teens he joined the Muslim Brotherhood and went on to form al-Jihad or Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ). EIJ’s plan was to gather sufficient strength to overthrow the Egyptian government and declare Egypt an Islamic State.
Egyptian Islamic militancy made its mark in 1981 when al-Jihad assassinated President Sadat. While the Egyptian government rounded up the perpetrators, once in prison they formed the basis of what was later to become Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya or the Islamic Group; the later was created by extremist students who were disenchanted by the Muslim Brotherhood renouncing violence. Amongst the arrested militants was al-Zawahiri.

While four of Sadat’s killers were condemned to death, the others once they had served their brief prison sentences fled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to join the Mujahideen. Egyptian Islamic Jihad was born in Peshawar and, although it paid lip service to Abud al-Zumur, a former Egyptian intelligence officer and plotter who was still in prison, Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif took charge.

In Afghanistan the Egyptians soon gained influence with bin Laden and moved to sideline Abdullah Azzam, who had been a driving force behind galvanising foreign support for the Afghan Mjuahideen. Al-Zawahiri took control of EIJ in 1991. The adoption of suicide tactics was thought to be as a result of contact with Hezbollah, as al-Zawahiri supporter Ali Mohamed had been sent to Lebanon for training.
The group attempted to kill the Egyptian Prime Minister in November 1993. Instead they blew up a girl’s school injuring 21 and killing a pupil. This, coupled with al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya’s ongoing campaign that would leave 1,300 dead, resulted in 280 members of EIJ being rounded up. In Sudan they fell out with the government, and bin Laden and al-Zawahiri and the others were ordered out. In Afghanistan the Egyptians had little choice but get further into bed with al-Qaeda.

Under the command of Mustafa Hamza, EIJ in league with al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, and Sudanese intelligence tried to murder Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a conference of the Organisation of African Unity in Ethiopia in the summer of 1995. Fortunately for Mubarak the attackers failed. In Pakistan, as a foretaste of the al-Qaeda bombings of the US embassies in East Africa, on 19 November 1995 the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad was blown up killing 16 and injuring 60.

The Islamic Group’s terror campaign through the 1990s greatly harmed Egypt’s economy, particularly tourism. The Egyptian government’s response was a repressive clampdown that involved the arrest of 20,000 Islamists. The Non-violence Initiative brokered in July 1997 resulted in 2,000 being released. Islamic Jihad sought to derail the initiative by enlisting the Islamic Group’s leaders Mustafa Hamza and Rifai Ahmed Taha, who were exiled in Afghanistan.

Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atef took a close interest in the war in Chechnya. In 1998, before Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged with al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri travelled there on a fact-finding mission. His vision was clear: “If the Chechens and other Caucasus Mujahideen reach the shores of the oil rich Caspian, the only thing that will separate them from Afghanistan will be the neutral state of Turkmenistan. This will form a mujahid belt to the south of Russia …” By the late 1990s, however, al-Jihad was dwindling and in June 2001 it merged with al -Qaeda. 

Following the devastation of 9/11 Washington, at first stunned and shocked by the sheer magnitude of the assault, quickly sought to punish those it held responsible. In early October 2001 the US tried to kill both bin Laden and al-Zawahiri during the attacks on Afghanistan. An armed Predator drone targeted a group of suspected al-Qaeda leaders near the Zawahr Kili caves on 4 February 2002. Although the missile killed at least two of the party, it was found not to include any of al-Qaeda’s top leadership.

The Egyptian Islamic Group renounced violence in 2003, and a split in the organisation’s leadership was signalled three years later when al-Zawahiri announced a new alliance between al-Qaeda and the Islamic Group. In the meantime al-Qaeda merged with Jordanian militant Abu Mus’ab al Zarqawi’s Iraq based group. 

In mid-October 2005 the US released a captured letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi criticising him for his tactics. He warned that the battle against the “crusaders” was being fought in the media. In particular, he questioned Zarqawi’s attacks on innocent Shia in Iraq and the “slaughtering” of hostages. “We are in a media battle in a race for the hearts and minds of the Umma (the followers of Islam),” wrote Zawahiri. He pointed out this was the only way Zarqawi could win in Iraq arguing that no matter what al-Qaeda’s capabilities.

In Zawahiri’s mind Iraq was just a stepping-stone. “It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established in the manner of the Prophet in the heart of the Islamic world, specifically the Levant, Egypt, and the neighbouring states of the peninsula and Iraq.” Zarqawi’s death in Iraq in 2006 put and end to such ambitions.

In early 2004, hopes had been high that bin Laden or al-Zawahiri would be killed or captured in Waziristan. Instead, Pakistani security forces in South Waziristan captured Ayman al-Zawahiri’s son in February 2004. He was handed over to the Pakistani intelligence agency the ISI and the CIA to see if he could shed any light on the location of either his father or bin Laden.

The CIA tried to kill al-Zawahiri with an air strike on the Pakistani village of Damadol on 13 January 2006. Nonetheless, at the end of the month he appeared on video still very much alive. Two years later he was reported injured in an air strike in South Waziristan – but this proved untrue. In September 2008 the Pakistani military claimed they almost ran him to ground in the Mohmand Agency in northwest Pakistan. In the meantime the ultimately successful hunt was still on for Osama bin Laden.

Al-Qaeda was always a disparate organisation, rightly dubbed “franchise terrorism”. Today, with the organisation’s leadership dead or in prison, it has morphed into something completely different. In Afghanistan and Pakistan al-Qaeda had clearly been subsumed by the local Taliban, who have largely regional not global ambitions.
Similarly, the two key successor organisations – al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – are also mainly regional organisations whose reach may or may not extend to North America and Europe. Al-Qaeda in-Iraq dissipated any power it had by alienating the population who turned on it for its appalling brutality.

It seems doubtful that the cause of global jihad will recover from Osama bin Laden’s death or, indeed, find another leader who will make such a lasting impact as their predecessor.

Anthony Tucker-Jones spent his career in the British intelligence community before establishing himself as a leading military historian and defence writer. In his latest book The Rise of Militant Islam he examines from an insider’s perspective how Western intelligence misinterpreted every landmark event on the road to 9/11 and ultimately failed to curb global jihad.