"Osama Bin Laden Page 1 of4

Abdullah Assam: The Man Before Osama Bin Laden

By Steve Emerson

The Jihad in Afghanistan will broaden until the entire world will be
conquered because Allah has promised the victory to Islam" declared
Abdullah Azzam.

The Muslim leader most responsible for expanding the jihad into a full-
blown international holy war without borders was not Osama Bin
Laden, or Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman (the radical Islamic cleric most
known to the American public for his conviction in the World Trade
Center bombing trials), but a leader whose name remains today
virtually unknown to the West - Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, Azzam is
more responsible than any Arab figure in modern history for galvanizing the Muslim masses to wage
an international holy war against all infidels and non-believers until the enemies of Islam were
defeated.

Born in Palestine in 1941, Azzam moved to Jordan and then to Saudi Arabia before migrating to
Pakistan at the start of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In Peshawar, Azzam set up the
Office of Services of the Holy Warriors (Mujahideen) and set about re-igniting the Islamic power rage
against those non-Islamic powers that had conspired against Islam since before the Crusades.
Darting off with not much more than a storefront in Peshawar, Azzam would ultimately succeed in
rejuvenating the concept of jihad among the Arab masses.

Those who met Azzam were dazzled by his spellbinding oratorical skills, his capabilities as a military
strategist, his religious leadership, and his interminable energy. Azzam helped bring about the
mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood movement more than any other leader. Today, the military
wing of Hamas in the West Bank is called the Abdellah Azzam Brigades.

Azzam combined hatred for the West - Christians and Jews - whom he routinely accused of carrying
out diabolical conspiracies against Islam, with a nostalgia for the days of the Islamic caliphate, when
non-Muslims were treated formally as second-class citizens. It was the United States that seemed to
epitomize for Azzam the ongoing Jewish-Christian conspiracy; yet, ironically, it was in the United
States that Azzam was able to raise critical amounts of money, enlist new fighters, and most
important, provide the political freedom to freely coordinate with other top radical Islamic
movements. Between 1985 and 1989, Azzam and his top aide, Palestinian Sheikh Tamim Al-
Adnani, visited dozens of American cities, exhorting their followers to pick up the sword against the
enemies of Islam. They succeeded in recruiting thousands of fighters and believers.

As he went around the country, Azzam focused his rage on the evils of the infidels, particularly on the
United States, whom he accused of sabotaging the victory of the anti-Soviet mujahideen. In one
speech - picked at random from hundreds that he gave and which are recorded on videotapes sold
throughout the world by Islamic fundamentalists - given to a group of followers in 1988 in Kansas,
Azzam said, "Today, humanity is being ruled by Jews and Christians. The Americans, the British and
others. And behind them, the fingers of world Jewry, with their wealth, their women and their media.
The Israelis have produced a coin on which it is written 'we shall never allow Islam to be established
in the world1."

Azzam's enmity toward Jews was not based on politics but rather the product of a pure hatred of the
Jewish people; he combined European blood libel propaganda from the Middle Ages and passages
from the Koran. In a 1998 speech, for example, Azzam talked about how the Jews "mix the blood of

http://www.iacsp.com/itobli3 .html 4/29/2004

The LAX Shooting ^ ^ Page 1 of 2

July 4, 2002

The LAX Shooting

Isolated Criminal Incident or Terror Attack?

Dr. Boaz Ganor

ICT Executive Director

On November 5th 1990, El Sayyid Nosair assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York. Kahane was
an ultra-nationalist who called for the expulsion of all Palestinian Arabs from Israel and the
occupied territories, and was regarded as the "marker" for the farthest right-wing extreme in
Israeli politics. The American security authorities arrested Nosair - an Egyptian-born American
citizen - immediately after the assassination. After a short investigation they decided that Nosair
had acted alone, and that Kahane's killing was a criminal act and not a terrorist attack. All Israeli
arguments that the murder had a political motive - and thus was properly classified as terrorism -
were rejected by the American authorities. Nosair was convicted and imprisoned as an "ordinary"
murderer.

Two years later, On February 26th 1993, a van filled with explosives blew up in the parking lot
under the World Trade Center in New York. The explosion caused extensive damage, killed 6
people, and wounded 1000. The aim of the terrorists was to damage the pillars supporting one of
the Twin Towers so that it would collapse; ideally, that tower would fall onto the other one,
causing it to topple as well. A few days after the attack, the FBI arrested a terrorist cell composed
of Islamic extremists headed by the blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Abdel Rachman was born in
Egypt, where he became a leader of the notorious Islamic Jihad terrorist group. He later fought in
Afghanistan, after which he was denied entrance to his native country. So it was that he was given
political asylum by the United States, and issued a "green card" to work there.

Rachman used his position as Imam (religious leader) at a New Jersey mosque to recruit other
fundamentalist Arab activists, along with some brainwashed American Moslems, assembling a very
dangerous cell that planned several large-scale terrorist attacks. Only after the Rachman cell was
arrested and interrogated did the American authorities discover that El Sayyid Nosair was one of
its members. In fact, some of the other members of the Rachman cell had visited Nosair in prison
before the World Trade Center bombing.

Now, two years after his arrest, the investigators decided to search Nosair's house more
thoroughly than they had when they thought he was a lone murderer; and for the first time they
translated some of the Arabic writings they found there. It turned out that these documents
contained information that would have enabled the authorities to predict and prevent the 1993
World Trade Center bombing - had they bothered to look at them. Had these investigators taken
Israeli advice and classified the Kahane assassination as an act of terror, their investigation would
have been more serious and thorough, and would probably have exposed the entire Rachman cell
long before it could carry out its first major attack.

The dispute between Israeli and American officials as to whether Hesham Mohamed Hadayet's

http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfin?articleid=442 4/29/2004
 Memorandum «t

COPY
Subject Date
Recommendation re the May 8, 1996
revocation of the naturalization
of EL SAYYID NOSAIR, INS' file
A23 406 577

To From
Warren A. Lewis Charles Parker
District Director District Counsel
Newark Newark

1. Enclosed is a memo from a member of my staff

recommending the revocation of the subject's naturalization. The
subject was convicted as a conspirator in the bombing of the
World Trade Center.

2. If you agree with me that a prima facie showing has

been made there should be a revocation action initiated by the
U.S. Attorney, you are required under the regulations at 8 C.F.R.
§ 340.11 to report the facts of your finding to the regional
director, along with your recommendation regarding whether or not
revocation should be pursued.

3. You are permitted to report the matter directly to the

U.S. Attorney only if you are recommending criminal prosecution
for the unlawful procurement of naturalization under 18 U.S. Code
1425. I do not recommend such criminal prosecution and I am
limiting my recommendation to a civil action under § 340 of the

Form G-2
(Rev. 1-2-80)