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| Terror Networks |
| Egypt foiled Padilla-Islamic Jihad link... |
| 2002-06-17 |
| Egyptian authorities were said to have foiled an attempt by Al Qaida to forge cooperation between Islamic insurgents in Egypt and the United States. Arab diplomatic sources said the attempt was conducted by Jose Padilla, a suspected Al Qaida agent arrested in Islamabad and now in U.S. custody. The sources said Egyptian officials have relayed to Washington information that Padilla tried to negotiate a cooperation accord with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization. Padilla, the sources said, was believed to have been an envoy of Jihad leader Ayman Zawahari, the chief deputy of Osama Bin Laden. Zawahari has been seeking to renew the Islamic insurgency against the Egyptian regime. The London-based Al Hayat daily reported on Thursday that Padilla arrived in Cairo in March to meet Jihad representatives. The newspaper said Egyptian authorities were informed of the meeting and forced Padilla to leave the country. That would seem to promote Padilla/al-Muhajir out of the "cog" category and into greater things — maybe even into the lower rungs of the Big Shot category. The fact that he screwed it up is beside the point... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #2 I'd say it represents discretion on the Egyptians' part. The Secret Police and their hot pincers work fine with the locals, but if they nab a Merkin then they have to explain why. There'd have been 752 lawyers with 70s-style poodle haircuts and $800 briefcases, each followed by a TV camera, rushing to his defense because after all he hadn't "done" anything -- nothing had exploded. There are people in the U.S. right this moment who are jumping up and down and hollering about the same thing -- he didn't actually blow anything up, he only intended to. |
| Posted by: Fred 2002-06-18 07:08:00 |
| #1 Fred, does anything about this report strike you as weird? Namely, that the Egyptians "knew" about Padilla's meeting and who he repped, and their reaction was to "force him to leave the country?" What ever happened to the good old secret police and their habits of removing spleens with red hot pincers? |
| Posted by: Bill Quick 2002-06-17 20:40:52 |