Counterterrorism Blog

In an new tape, Al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri announces the "merger" of the Egyptian Islamic Group (a.k.a. al-Jamaa al-Islamiya or Gamaa Islamiya or Jamaa Islamiya, not to be confused with the Indonesian Al Qaeda-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah) into Al Qaeda. "We announce to the Islamic nation the good news of the unification of a great faction of the knights of the Gamaa Islamiya ... with the al-Qaida group." A leading member of the Egyptian Islamic Group, Abu Jihad al-Misri, explained that one reason for the merger was to the Group's spiritual leader, Sheikh Omar Rahman, who was imprisoned for inspiring the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Al-Zawahiri was a leader in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the other main Egyptian militant group besides the Islamic Group, before joining forces with OBL in Al Qaeda in the 1990s. But he began his millitantism as a member of Islamic Group and served time in prison in Egypt for his role in the group’s assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The primary theme of the tape is to invite members of Islamic Group who ceased operations against Egypt over ten years ago (after effective prosecution by the Mubarek government) to rejoin the jihad. Islamic Group's leader, Karam Zuhdi, was set free from prison in 2003 and expressed regret for conspiring with Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the Sadat assassination. In her analysis, Laura Mansfield notes, "It appears that by joining forces with Al Qaeda formally and officially, that Jamaa Islamiya has ended its ceasefire with the Egyptian government."

In reading a transcript of the tape by Rita Katz of the Site Institute, I noticed no specific mention of other Islamic groups, including Hezbollah; instead, there is a call for Muslim unity by al-Misri:

Do you have a word of invitation for the Islamic groups around the Islamic world?

I invite all leaders and members of the Islamic movements in the Islamic world to unite and come together under one banner to confront the Zionist/Crusader assault on Islam and Muslims, and I call on them to pay no heed to anyone who discourages under the pretense of inability.

Is this another effort by al-Zawahiri, with his new allies, to reach out to Shia for a united front without alienating his Sunni base? Note Zeyno Baran's August 2 report of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's call for Sunnis in Lebanon to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Hizbullah, while Walid Phares, Jeffrey Cozzens, and Evan Kohlmann have already posted their skepticism over a resolution of the traditional Sunni-Shia breach.