Egypt:A revisionist message sent from an Egyptian prison cell could well shake the certainties of many Islamist fighters, writes Ian Blackin Cairo.
In a prison cell south of Cairo a repentant Egyptian terrorist leader is putting the finishing touches to a remarkable recantation that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad and is set to generate furious controversy among former comrades still fighting with al-Qaeda.
Sayid Imam al-Sharif (57) was the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organisation, whose supporters assassinated president Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later teamed up with Osama Bin Laden in the Afghan war against the Soviet occupation.
Sharif, a surgeon who is still known by his underground name of "Dr Fadl", is famous as the author of the Salafi jihadists' "bible" - Foundations of Preparation for Holy War.
He worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Egyptian doctor and now Bin Laden's deputy, before being kidnapped in Yemen after 9/11, interrogated by the CIA and extradited to Egypt, where he has been serving a life sentence since 2004.
Sharif recently gave an electrifying foretaste of his conversion by condemning killings on the basis of nationality and colour of skin and the targeting of women and children, citing the Koranic injunction: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits; for God loveth not transgressors." Armed operations were wrong, counterproductive and must cease, he declared sternly.
Zawahiri, evidently rattled, rounded sarcastically on him in a video message broadcast after Sharif's statement.
Sharif announced not only his change of heart, but a book-length repudiation endorsed by hundreds of other former militants, which is due to be published soon.
"Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian jail cells?" Zawahiri asked. "I wonder if they're connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines [used to torture prisoners]," he said, dismissing the exercise as propaganda warfare by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's security services.
But Egyptian and western experts, government officials and former jihadis agree that Sharif's shift is both genuine and highly significant. "People will say things to stop being tortured, but this is the result of a long process of reflection and debate," said Muntasir al-Zayyat, a lawyer jailed for Islamic Jihad membership in the 1980s. "When the book comes out there will be a furious reaction from Zawahiri and the global jihadi movement. It is clear that Sayid Imam will call a halt to killing operations in Egypt and abroad."
Diaa Rashwan, of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, said: "I have no doubt this is genuine. It will be a real shock . . . Jihadis will see hundreds of their former brothers criticising their most fundamental ideas. That's why Zawahiri is so bothered by it."
Conversion: no one is predicting that the book will stop suicide bombings in Iraq or Afghanistan, but interest is so intense that several Arabic newspapers are competing to buy the 100-page work, entitled Advice Regarding the Conduct of Jihadist Action in Egypt and the World.
Sharif's recantation has emerged from an Egyptian counter-radicalisation programme that has successfully "converted" and rehabilitated members of the Gama'a Islamiyya (Islamic Group), once the largest jihadist organisation in the Arab world, and which mounted countless armed attacks starting in the 1980s until calling a ceasefire after massacring 62 foreign tourists at Luxor in 1997.
Its top ideologues, mostly now freed, have written 25 volumes of revisions in a series called Tashih al-Mafahim (Corrections of Concepts). These tackle key doctrinal issues such as the concept of "takfir" (declaring a Muslim an apostate and therefore permissible to kill); attacks on civilians and foreign tourists; and waging jihad against a Muslim ruler who does not apply sharia law.
"If you want to rob these people of their cover, you have to take away their legitimacy," said Ashraf Mohsin, an Egyptian diplomat dealing with counter-terrorism.
"The way to deprive them of their ability to recruit is to attack the message. If you take Islam out of the message, all that is left is criminality."
Sharif and other Jihad prisoners have been allowed by the Egyptian interior ministry to meet and consult each other in prison.
- (Guardian service)