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Top ideologue repudiates violent jihad

Cairo: In a prison cell south of Cairo, a repentant Egyptian terrorist leader is putting the finishing touches to a remarkable recantation that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad and is set to generate furious controversy among former comrades still fighting with Al-Qaeda.

Sayid Imam al-Sharif (57), was the founder and first emir (commander) of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation, whose supporters assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later teamed up with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet occupation.

Sharif, a surgeon who is still known by his underground name of “Dr Fadl”, is famous as the author of the Salafi jihadists’ book “Foundations of Preparation for Holy War”.

He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor and now Osama’s deputy, before being kidnapped in Yemen after 9/11, interrogated by the CIA and extradited to Egypt where has been serving a life sentence since 2004.

Sharif recently gave an electrifying foretaste of his conversion by condemning killings on the basis of nationality and colour of skin and the targeting of women and children, citing the Koranic injunction: “Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors.” Armed operations were wrong, counterproductive and must cease, he declared sternly.

Zawahiri, evidently rattled, rounded sarcastically on him in a video message broadcast after Sharif’s statement — faxed from Torah prison to an Arabic newspaper — announced not only his change of heart but a book-length repudiation endorsed by hundreds of other former militants, and which is due to be published soon.

Egyptian and Western experts, government officials and former jihadis agree that Sharif’s shift is both genuine and highly significant.

No one is predicting that the book will stop suicide bombings in Iraq or Afghanistan, but interest is so intense that several Arabic newspapers are competing to buy the 100-page work, entitled “Advice Regarding the Conduct of Jihad ist Action in Egypt and the World.” —

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