EGYPT: Jihadi violence revisited

A heavyweight ideologue of al-Jihad group has drafted a new document where he revisited the group's initial ideology and renounced violence. In his treatise, Sayed Imam, who co-founded the first cell of al-Jihad group with Ayman al-Zawahri in Egypt in the late 1970's, revisited the juristic foundations that justified the group's violence against Muslims and non-Muslims.

The document titled "Document for the Rationalization of al-Jihad in Egypt and the World" is expected to be published in sequels in the local and regional press starting next week.

These revisions mark a drastic paradigm shift for Imam, the author of two previous books that influenced the thinking of most Arab jihadists and al-Qaeda members. Imam drafted this document behind bars where is serving a 25-year sentence. He is expected to be released in 2029.   

"This document will stir a turbulence within the ranks of al-Qaeda all over the world," says Diaa Rashwan, an expect on Islamist groups with al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies who has already read the full version of the document. .

""This comes as the strongest blow to al-Qaeda," he says. "This criticism is coming from within the Jihadi camp itself." Rashwan expects the blow to prompt Al-Zawahri to release a series of new audio recordings as a rebuttal to Imam's treatise.

The document holds as illegitimate all military operations in any non-Muslim country and prohibits attacks against civilians whether Muslim or non-Muslim, added Rashwan.

Al-Jihad group is held responsible for the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat. The group also plotted attempts on the lives of few Egyptian ministers in the 1990's; however, the governmnet succeeded  in breaking the group's bones after it seized a computer with all active members in 1993.

Yet, many of the groups leaders and members including al-Qaeda's second man had fled to Afghanistan and Pakistan since the 1980's.  Outside Egypt, al-Jihad bombed the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad in 1995. The group is also believed to stand behind the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Many of al-Jihad leaders joined Osama Bin Laden in the late 1990's and eventually formed al-Qaeda.

Around 2000 members of al-Jihad group still languish in Egyptian prisons. If they all endorse Imam's revision, the government may be encouraged to release them.

In the late 1990's, al-Jama'a al-Islameyya leaders published a number of books where they revisited their initial ideology and renounced the use of violence. Eventually, the state released thousands of the group's jailed members.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo