Al-Sharq al-Awsat has an odd story today about Ayman al-Zawahiri. The paper talked to Mohamed Khalil Hassan Hakayma, a leader of the branch of the Gamaa Islamiya which declared allegiance to al-Qaeda last year, who told them that Zawahiri hadn't used a phone or the internet in four years because of security concerns. Hani Saba'i, a well-known London-based Islamist commentator, agreed that Zawahiri avoids the phone and the internet. According to Saba'i, Zawahiri is highly security conscious, and deals only with the al-Sahab media organization and a handful of Egyptian jihadists (who could be counted on one hand) who deliver his videos and tapes for distribution. It's hard to square those claims with Zawahiri's frequent references to very current events in his tapes, and I don't have a great deal of confidence in the Saudi-controlled al-Sharq al-Awsat's reporting, so take it all for what it's worth.
Meanwhile, Hakayma (who, recall, is a leader of the branch of the Gamaa which pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, and thus in a position to know) told al-Sharq al-Awsat that the prominent Egyptian Islamist lawyer Mamduh Ismail - arrested a few days ago and charged with having ties to Zawahiri and al-Qaeda - had not had any such contacts. If al-Qaeda had wanted an Egyptian conduit, he explained, it certainly would not have chosen a well-known, prominent Islamist figure. Of course, the cynic might respond that of course he would say that in order to protect Ismail if he were in fact the conduit.. I certainly don't know the truth, but I'm having a hard time finding anyone who thinks that Ismail is guilty of the al-Qaeda charges, which appear to be trumped up as an excuse to imprison someone who had been defending Islamists against the regime's current campaign of arrests and repression. The Egyptian regime has very low credibility on issues related to Islamism (or anything else) right now, so there's a high burden of proof.
UPDATE: the al-Tajdeed forum (and others) have posted a statement from Hakayma which supports the report in al-Sharq al-Awsat. He says that he has had no communication with Mamduh Ismail, even though he had wanted to talk to Ismail to criticize his public stance in support of the Gamaa's ceasefire and his criticism of Gamaa's merger with al-Qaeda. The statement also includes the comments about Zawahiri avoiding the telephone and internet for security reasons. Hani Siba'i, the other person quoted in that story, also has released a statement (posted on al-Tajdeed and elsewhere) which says that Ismail was arrested because of his defense of innocent Islamists and that the al-Qaeda story was concocted because it would be easy to get Europeans and Americans to believe it. Everyone who follows Islamist politics, writes Siba'i, knows very well that Zawahiri and Ismail have been feuding for many years because of their disagreement over the Gamaa ceasefire. The real question is why the Egyptian government decided to arrest a prominent supporter of the ceasefire - do they want to provoke the Gamaa into returning to violence? (Is that why the Egyptian government quietly released a bunch of leaders of Islamic Jihad from prison on the same day they arrested Ismail, this line of questioning might add?) These two statements support al-Sharq al-Awsat's story.. or, actually, they ARE al-Sharq al-Awsat's story.
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