Conflicting stories were circulating in Egypt Tuesday over the fate of Rifai Ahmed Taha, an Islamist leader sought by Cairo. Taha is said to be a former leader of the armed Gamaa Islamiya group and close to the Al Qaeda network of accused terrorist Osama bin Laden, according to AFP.
In a statement received at the offices of the Arab Al Hayat daily in Cairo, the Islamic Observation Center - a London-based organization supporting Muslim rights - said that "Taha was extradited by Syria to Egypt in October, following his arrest some months ago by the Syrian authorities."
The news was confirmed in a report by the Middle East Newsline (MENL).
The news service quoted Islamic opposition sources as saying that Syria extradited Taha last month. They said the rebel, sentenced to death in absentia, was extradited from Teheran to Damascus. Taha was then sent from Syria to Egypt.
The Gamaa Islamiya was the leading insurgency group in Egypt during the 1990s. The sources said the Iranian arrest and extradition of Taha marked the most dramatic development in the US-led war against terrorism since Islamic suicide attackers struck New York and Washington on Sept. 11. Both Iran and Syria are on the US State Department list of terrorist sponsors.
But AFP quoted the center’s statement as saying that Taha's arrest "occurred just days after his arrival in Syria from Sudan."
The director of the Islamic Observation Center, Egyptian Yasser Al Siri, was arrested and charged in Britain at the end of October over his alleged role in the killing of Afghan opposition leader Ahmad Shah Masood.
An Islamist living in London has confirmed to AFP that the statement signed by the center came from members of Siri's family, who it said were generally considered reliable sources.
In Cairo, a police official denied Tuesday that Rifai Ahmed Taha had been extradited to Egypt.
"Taha has perhaps been killed, like many Arab Afghans during American raids on Afghanistan, and his backers want to justify his disappearance with this rumor," he told AFP.
Rifai Ahmed Taha signed a statement along with alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden in Feb, 1998 in Peshawar in Pakistan, announcing the establishment of "an international front to fight Jews and crusaders," but backed out after the anti-US attacks in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam in August of the same year, according to Egyptian Islamists in London, cited by AFP.
That intelligence information was confirmed by the Egyptian security services.
Taha, 47, was accused of orchestrating the attack in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, claimed by his outlawed group, in which 58 tourists and four Egyptians were killed in 1997.
In 1998, he was pushed out from the leadership of the Gamaa Islamiya in favor of Mustafa Hamza, said AFP – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
