Mere Labanisme

[Associated Press – October 6, 1995]: “Some 500 Muslims demonstrated Friday to protest the disappearance of a militant Muslim leader who went missing during a trip to Croatia last month.  Spokesman Ahmed Abulaban said Egypt, the United States and Croatia “are the beneficiaries” of the disappearance of Talaat Fouad Qassem who has been living in Denmark since 1992 as a political refugee.  Wanted by Egypt on charges of attempting to overthrow the secular government, Qassem was ordered out of Croatia on Sept. 18, and left for an unknown destination, according to Croatian officials.  Under President Clinton’s anti-terrorism initiative, Qassem’s name was put on a list of people to whom transfer of funds are to be blocked. The initiative also froze the U.S. assets of groups the U.S. deemed used terrorism to subvert peace activities.  Qassem also appears on a U.S. Department of Justice list of possible co-conspirators to Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian religious leader, and nine other Muslims who have been convicted of conspiring to bomb the United Nations and other buildings in New York.  The demonstrators, including Qassem’s pregnant wife Amani Farouk, went to the Croatian embassy where Abulaban, a Copenhagen imam, handed over a letter to a diplomat.  Before dissolving, demonstrators raised their fists and shouted ‘God is Great’ outside the downtown Copenhagen building… Qassem, 38, co-founded the outlawed al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, which has been blamed for much of the violence in a three-year campaign by militants to restore strict Islamic rule.”

Fra: Counterterroism