Egypt Releases 900 Members Of Terror Group
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The Egyptian government has released 900 members of an Islamic terrorist group, Gamaa Islamiya, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Its members were responsible for a November 1997 attack on a tourist bus at the temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor that killed 58. (The artifacts associated with Queen Hatshepsut are currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)
In 1996, an American court sentenced to life one of the organization’s leaders, blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, for conspiring to attack landmarks including the United Nations, and on charges related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. The Gamaa were responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Sadat and also an attempt on President Hosni Mubarak’s life during a 1995 visit to Ethiopia.
The stated goal of the Gamaa Islamiya, which translates as “Islamic group,” is to turn Egypt into an Islamic state. Its popularity fell after the 1997 Luxor attack because the drop in tourism that followed resulted in economic hardship.
An August 1998 article in U.S. News and World Report noted that some Gamaa Islamiya members signed a fatwa drawn up by Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, vowing to join Muslims in killing American civilians.
