Militant calls for attacks on Egypt

DUBAI: A man described as a leader of al-Qaeda’s wing in Egypt called for attacks on Israeli and Western targets in the Arab world’s most populous country in support of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
‘O heroes, strike … all the Zionist-Crusader targets in the land of Egypt without shedding the blood of Muslims,’ Mohamed Hakaima, a former leader of Egypt’s Gama’a Islamiya militant group, said in a statement posted on the Internet.

Egyptian experts on Islamist groups say they doubt al-Qaeda has an organised presence in Egypt or that Hakaima, who is believed to be in Afghanistan, has followers in the country.

Kamal Habib, a former Gama’a leader, told Reuters on Sunday: ‘I don’t believe that al- Qaeda has a presence in Egypt. I don’t think that Hakaima has any supporters in Egypt.’

‘Al-Qaeda does not have a presence in the organisational sense. There may be some people who believe in the ideas of al-Qaeda,’ added Habib, who is now an expert on Islamist groups.