Word: sadat
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...week passed, precious few additional details came to light concerning the Sadat assassination. One theory remained unchanged: that the assassins were members of a small, violent Islamic fundamentalist group, Takfir wa Hijra (Atonement and Holy Flight). An outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, Takfir wa Hijra was responsible for the abduction and murder of one of Sadat's former Cabinet ministers in 1977; now it is implicated not only in the killing of Sadat but in the rioting later that week in Asyut...
Many of the Islamic groups have at their center a powerful leader. In the case of Takfir wa Hijra, it was Shukri Ahmed Mustafa, who was hanged by the Sadat government in 1978 for planning the murder of the former Religious Affairs Minister. To his followers, the charismatic Mustafa was an almost omnipotent authority on religious as well as personal matters. "Even after the death sentence had been handed out," wrote Sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim in a study of the group, "Mustafa's followers would not believe that the government could take his life." Like many other fanatical Muslims...
...likelihood, the shock of Sadat's murder will impede the rapid growth of the fundamentalist movements for the time being. But, as one Egyptian scholar cautions, "the huge base of sympathizers, which may number in the millions, is still in place." Almost everyone agrees that the militants lack the power to seize the government, but they do have the capacity to cause endless trouble. Security crackdowns, such as Sadat's roundup of 1,600 assorted opponents last month or the arrests last week, could easily backfire. So could the Reagan Administration's plan for a spectacular display...
...government is obviously apprehensive. In the parade two weeks ago at which Sadat was shot, all the troops except the assassins carried weapons without ammunition. At the funeral four days later, the honor guard was equipped with rifles from which even the bolts had been removed...
...insurgents still face a host of problems, some of them self-inflicted. Despite the late Anwar Sadat's revelation that Egypt has served as a channel for the U.S. to infiltrate Soviet-designed weapons to the rebels, the mujahedin insist that they still rely primarily on what they can capture from their fallen or routed enemies. They have acquired from the outside, mainly the U.S., China and Egypt, some antiaircraft guns and antitank weapons, but not in sufficient quantity to neutralize the MiGs, helicopter gunships and heavy armor that throw such devastating firepower against rebel encampments and villages...