'Blind sheikh' convicted in 1993 World Trade bombing dies in prison, son says

[Eugene]

Last edited Sat Feb 18, 2017, 01:36 PM - Edit history (2)

Source: Reuters

Omar Abdel-Rahman, the extremist Muslim cleric known as "the blind sheikh" convicted of conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and of planning more attacks as part of a "war of urban terrorism" in the United States, has died in a U.S. prison, his son Ammar told Reuters on Saturday.

Ammar said his family had received a phone call from a U.S. representative saying his father had died. He was 78.

The Egyptian-born Abdel-Rahman remained a spiritual leader for radical Muslims even after decades of incarceration.

With his long gray beard, sunglasses and red and white clerical cap, the charismatic Abdel-Rahman was the face of radical Islam in the 1980s and 1990s. He preached a fiery brand of Islam that called for the death of people and governments he disapproved of and the installation of an Islamic government in Egypt. His following was tied to fundamentalist killings and bomb attacks around the world.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tradecenter-rahman-idUSKBN15X0KU

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WORLD NEWS Sat Feb 18, 2017 12:15pm EST

EDIT Reuters article updated at link.

Original Reuters headline: Trade Center bomber Omar Abdel-Rahman dies in prison in U.S., says son

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Source: Al Arabiya

Islamic Group’s ‘Blind Sheikh’ Omar Abdel-Rahman dies in US prison

Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Saturday, 18 February 2017

Former leader of Egyptian Islamist militant group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya Omar Abdel-Rahman has died in his US prison after serving more than 20 years for seditious conspiracy to commit murder, his son and daughter have confirmed.

Abdel-Rahman, also known as the Blind Sheik, was serving a life sentence in the United States for his role in masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Reuters news agency reported Abdel-Rahmans son confirming the death while his daughter Asmaa Abdel-Rahman took to Twitter to announce the news.

The 78-year-old spiritual leader of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, or the Islamic Group, was revered within extremist circles in Egypt during the early 1980s. He was charged on suspicion of involvement in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat, which he was acquitted of involvement later.

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Read more: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2017/02/18/Egypt-s-extremist-Blind-Sheikh-Omar-Abdel-Rahman-dies-in-US-prison-.html

[George II]

1. Tracked down, arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced by the Bill Clinton government....

....remember that, republican attack dogs!

[Rustyeye77]

2. Good bye Omar.

rot in hell

[dalton99a]

3. Now he'll see Satan

or whoever the hell it is

[hrmjustin]

4. May he rot in hell!

[IronLionZion]

5. Terrorists get captured or killed when a Democrat is president

Innocent civilians die when a Republican is president.

[former9thward]

14. I'm sure the innocent killed when a Democrat was in charge appreciate the distinction.

From The Atlantic (a publication friendly to Democrats):

One campaign, Operation Haymaker, took place in northeastern Afghanistan.

“Between January 2012 and February 2013,” The Intercept reported, “U.S. special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.” That’s one campaign of many in just one country where drone killings happen.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-administrations-drone-strike-dissembling/473541/

[IronLionZion]

16. Jimmy Carter did not drop even one bomb his whole presidency

Clinton and Obama had targeted missile strikes and commando operations.

The Bushes had large ground wars and massive bombing campaigns that killed thousands of children and burned people alive. Trump has promised carpet bombing.

Go ahead and compare the kill counts between Obama's and W's presidencies.

Notable kills during Obama's presidency include high value targets like Osama Bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi.

[former9thward]

17. How is the weather in your alt fact universe?

I notice you just went back to Carter for some reason. Why not mention Nixon? Of course if you did you would have to mention LBJ who killed hundreds of thousands of innocents in Vietnam through bombings and all sorts of other ways.

Funny you mention Libya which was the biggest disaster of Obama's foreign policy. No, Gaddafi was not killed by the U.S. He was killed by ISIS wannabees Libyan rebels. At the time of his death he had ended his terrorist ties (according to the Obama State Department) and was tilting to the U.S. His death set in motion the disraveling of Libya and it is now a Somalia like failed state which ISIS, among others, is competing to control.

Innocent civilians have been killed all over the Middle East by both Republican and Democratic CICs. In my universe, the real one, if not yours.

[DonnaRx7]

23. You do have a point.

[JonLP24]

26. He never really had "terrorist ties"

Libya was a "problem" because they nationalized oil production then Goldman Sachs looted their Treasury.

Goldman Sachs Sued for Selling Libya Billions in "Worthless" Options mm

Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, is being sued in London for selling Libya “worthless” derivatives trades in 2008 that the country’s financial managers did not understand. Libya says it lost approximately $1.2 billion on the deals, while Goldman made $350 million.

At the time, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), which invests profits from the country’s oil and gas exports, had assets worth $60 billion under former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Goldman Sachs convinced LIA to buy long-term call options on six companies: Allianz, a German insurance and investment company; Banco Santander, a Spanish bank; Citbank, a U.S. bank; Électricité de France, a French state utility; ENI, an Italian oil company; and UniCredit, an Italian bank.

What the Libyans did not understand was that if the stocks in these six companies did not rise, their investments would become worthless. Instead the LIA executives were taken in by a trip to Morocco as well as "small gifts, such as aftershaves and chocolates” and an offer of an internship for Mustafa Mohamed Zarti, the brother of the Libyan fund's deputy executive director, in Dubai and London.

“The unique circumstances allowed Goldman Sachs to take advantage of the LIA’s extremely limited financial and legal experience to deliberately exploit its position of influence and to take advantage in a way that generated colossal losses for the LIA but substantial profits for Goldman Sachs,” said LIA Chairman AbdulMagid Breish in a statement.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15922

[7962]

19. Mostly because terrorists surround themselves with family & other innocents.

Thats tough for them. Yes, sometimes mistakes are made; we're not perfect. But most of the time "innocents" are killed because of who they are with. And "innocents" are also subjective. In the recent raid, women were firing at the troops in the fight. They're not innocent at all. Many of the same types are likely present at many other events where innocents are supposedly killed
Tough shit.

[former9thward]

20. Ok hero.

You ever been in the military?

[7962]

21. Yes, 10 yrs.

Every generation of my family has been in the military as well.
Not that it makes the point any different.

[riversedge]

6. He took 6 U.S.souls-now his soul will meet his creator.

[lastlib]

7. An obituary I read with great pleasure!

[winstars]

8. Say hello to OBL for me SCUMBAG!!!

[Kolesar]

24. Can we feed him to the fishes? ... eom

[Tommy_Carcetti]

9. Funny how trying via due process and imprisoning him for life...

....removes the prospect of martyrdom. Because this guy died in prison and most of America forgot who he was.

And that's they way it should have been.

[former9thward]

18. I don't think it will stop martyrdom.

Members of al-Qaeda are mourning the death of Omar Abdel-Rahman, commonly known as “the Blind Sheik,” who died on Saturday at the age of 78. Abdel-Rahman, a convicted terrorist whose followers in 1993 committed the World Trade Center bombing, died after suffering from diabetes and coronary artery disease in a North Carolina prison while serving a life sentence.

Al Qaeda’s main media wing, the Al-Sahab Foundation, took to its social media channels to mourn Abdel-Rahman. In response to his death, the terror group circulated a letter Abdel-Rahman supposedly wrote in prison that detailed the poor conditions of his stay. In it, Abdel-Rahman complains about prison guards strip searching him, cameras constantly surveilling him, and the horrors of solitary confinement.

Vocativ has not verified the authenticity of the letter, and we couldn’t find any mention of how he wrote this letter if he was blind. Further, it is unclear if Abdel-Rahman wrote this letter while incarcerated at FMC Rochester in Minnesota or FMC Butner in North Carolina.

However, Vocativ viewed hundreds of posts on al-Qaeda’s Telegram channel, as well as some Twitter accounts, eulogizing Abdel-Rahman and vowing revenge against the United States.

http://www.vocativ.com/403846/al-qaeda-mourns-blind-sheik-convicted-for-1993-world-trade-attack/

[hack89]

10. Good. Nt

[erpowers]

12. Has Trump Taken Credit Yet

So, has Trump congratulated himself, or attempted to take credit for this event?

[7962]

22. In a year, it'll count as a "first year accomplishment" nt

[Adrahil]

13. But we can't try terrorists in U.S. courts... it too DANGEROUS....

The GOP are sniveling cowards.

[jmowreader]

15. And we didn't have to implement a travel ban to deal with this problem either!

[JonLP24]

25. Ed Norris

The murder of Meir Kahane

While commander of the 17th Detective Squad, Norris led the investigation into the murder of Meir Kahane, an American-Israeli rabbi and ultranationalist writer and political figure. At the time, the NYPD officially classified the murder as the act of a lone gunman, over the protests of Norris who warned of a bigger conspiracy. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, it was later revealed that Meir Kahane was the first al-Qaeda murder inside the US, as well as the first incident leading up to 9/11.

Kahane was killed in a Manhattan hotel by an Arab gunman on November 5, 1990 after Kahane concluded a speech warning American Jews to immigrate to Israel before it was "too late.” He was shot by El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian-born American citizen. Nosair fled the room, shooting 74-year-old Irving Franklin. As Nosair continued onto Lexington Avenue, attempting to flee in a taxi, he saw a police officer approaching him. Nosair stepped out of the taxi and fired shots toward the officer. The officer returned fire and both men lay wounded in the street. Upon searching Nosair's wallet, a list was found containing the names of several New York elected officials along with Nosair's New Jersey address.

At Nosair's home, detectives found and arrested two Egyptian men who admitted to driving taxis for a living as well as being in the vicinity at the time of the shooting. The ensuing search of Nosair's home revealed many items of concern including photographs of New York City landmarks, classified US Military documents, bomb-making manuals and books containing Arabic diagrams that Norris believed to represent plans to hijack an armored car. These diagrams were later revealed to be a plan to assassinate then Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak.

The next morning, while briefing the Chief of Detectives, Norris refuted the NYPD's assertion that this was the act of a single crazed gunman. Norris described the evidence and the drivers of the believed get-away car in custody. The Chief of Detectives told Norris, "you shut up and handle the murder, they do conspiracies," pointing to the FBI agents in the room. Norris was then ordered to release the cab drivers and turn over his documents. Nosair was sent to prison for the Kahane assassination and the cab drivers were released.

One of the released cab drivers later rented the van that was used in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. During the World Trade Center bombing trial, the documents uncovered from Nosair’s home were translated to reveal the words Al Qaeda, and a descriptive roadmap of 9/11. Norris' vision of a bigger plot in the single murder case have been mentioned in The Cell by John Miller and Michael Stone, 1000 Years for Revenge by Peter Lance, House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties by Craig Unger, and several others books.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Norris