Word: omar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Cairo officials also blame Sheik Omar and his 10,000 hard-core disciples in Egypt for 20 attacks against tourist targets. The most recent, a TNT explosion that ripped through Cairo's Wadi el-Nil cafe, came just 75 minutes after the Trade Center explosion, and investigators are looking into a possible connection. Four people were killed in the Cairo blast, including a Swede and a Turk. Two Americans and a Canadian were among the 18 people injured...
...interview with TIME in January, Sheik Omar carefully denied involvement in any violent incident. "What is needed from me is not to make fatwas, but to say the truth," he said. Though his manner is good humored, Sheik Omar grows sharp when railing against the "dishonest" Western media and denouncing the brutal tactics of Egyptian security forces, abuses that are also well documented by human-rights organizations. His harsh interpretations of Muslim scriptures have won the allegiance of many young and disaffected Egyptians...
People who live in the neighborhood said they have not seen Sheik Omar since Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, which began on Feb. 22. Mohammed Mehdi, secretary-general of the National Council on Islamic Affairs, said the sheik left New York to visit friends in Detroit. Mehdi added that Sheik Omar was exhausted by the publicity surrounding the January hearing in a federal immigration court in Newark, New Jersey, when the cleric was threatened with deportation for failing to disclose on his visa application that he had passed a bad check in Egypt. The judge...
...result is a vicious standoff. Islamic groups, of which Sheik Omar's is just one of many, have accelerated their attacks on security forces and Coptic Christians, as well as tourist sites. Last year 80 people were killed and 130 wounded. Al Jama'a, which is believed to operate in small cells, has claimed responsibility for most of the 20 tourist attacks. In addition to the cafe attack, one Briton has been killed and five Germans wounded. Revenues from tourism, which were expected to total $4 billion this year, have been cut in half...
...Sheik Omar has put in his bid for something more dramatic. In January, one week before his appearance before the federal immigration court in Newark, he said he wanted to return to Egypt if he was deported. "If they kill me," he said of his possible return, "that will be a certificate that I am a martyr...