Brotherhood's secret files … Episode 12

Published on December 29, 2013 on the website of the Arab Center for Studies and Research

Muslim Brotherhood and terrorism

Technical Military College Organization a byproduct of the Brotherhood

First meeting between Talal al-Ansari and Saleh Sariya took place at the home of Zainab al-Ghazali, under the auspices of al-Hudaybi.

Al-Hudaybi read Saleh's secret vision of the coup in full, and agreed to it.

Talal al-Ansari pledged allegiance to al-Hudaybi at his home in Manial.

The group codified the organization with a plan to deny relations between them in the event these relations were exposed.

Military Technical College and the 1970s

After the late President Anwar Sadat came to power, he released Brotherhood leaders from the prisons and concluded an agreement with them not to work in politics, turning a new page with the group. Soon, however, the cadres of the group sought to include a number of young people who embraced Sayyid Qotb's jihadist ideology to use them in a new attempt to overthrow the regime of the late president, which came to be known at the time as the Military Technical College case. 

Talal al-Ansari, one of the leaders of the organization who was sentenced to death and then the sentence commuted to life imprisonment, revealed in his memoirs, 'Unknown Pages From the History of the Contemporary Islamic Movement … From the Setback to Gallows', that they had formed a secret organization in Alexandria in 1968. This organization remained in existence until the Muslim Brothers were released from prisons, when by chance, one of the Brotherhood's cadres in Alexandria, called Sheikh Ali, introduced him to Zainab al-Ghazali who in turn introduced him to Iraqi Brotherhood member, Saleh Sariya, who convinced him to join him and his organization. They then became the nucleus of the group's new military wing. Al-Ansari added that after agreeing to this proposal, Zainab al-Ghazali arranged for him to meet the general guide at the time in late (1972), Counselor Hassan al-Hudaybi, at his home in Manial al-Rawda neighborhood.

1. Al-Ansari tells the story of his full pledge of allegiance to the Brotherhood, saying: "When I greeted the guide, he was like someone who was stunned by this scene that he had never seen before and did not get used to it. Then the guide sat down, but did not utter a word. Sheikh Ali sat closest to him. Sheikh Ali began catching his breath and then went on to explain to the guide what surprised him in Alexandria from the youth movement related to the Brotherhood. He introduced al-Ansari to the guide as one of these youths. Sheikh Ali then fell suddenly silent and silence prevailed for a while. Al-Ansari noticed a whisper coming from Sheikh Ali’s side, only understanding his command to him: Extend your hand. He thought Sheikh Ali had wanted him to shake hands. So, he extended his hand to the guide. Then the guide rose up and gripped al-Ansari's hand firmly. Al-Ansari then found himself repeating behind Sheikh Ali the well-known Brotherhood expressions of allegiance: I pledge to you for hearing and obedience in ease and hardship, and in tonic and compulsion. The guide then fell into a noble silence and hugged al-Ansari tightly. Sheikh Ali stands was touched and his tears started flowing from his eye. The meeting did not last long. Then Sheikh Ali left and al-Ansari followed him. 

Talal al-Ansari, 'Unknown Pages from the History of the Contemporary Islamic Movement ... From Setback to Gallows' - Dar al Mahrousa - First edition 2006 - Page 40.

Saleh Sariya … Link

1. The meeting, which took place under the auspices and arrangement of Zainab al-Ghazali, was the beginning of a new stage in the history of the group. Saleh's first secret instructions to the youth, according to al-Ansari, "He alone is the link with the Brotherhood, from this date, any role of the Brotherhood must be concealed and everybody has to conceal any links with the group. In implementing this, Saleh Sariya prepared a scenario that al-Ansari trained to implement in case of security investigations, with the aim of keeping the Brotherhood away from any connection with the upcoming events. The scenario was that al-Ansari got to be known through parties other than the Brotherhood and Zainab al-Ghazali. The alternative prepared by Saleh stated that al-Ansari read a press interview conducted by an Egyptian magazine with Saleh while he was attending the sessions of the Palestinian National Congress in Cairo in 1968, and that he admired him and sought to meet him at Scarabee Hotel in Cairo, where the connection between them began.

Talal al-Ansari - Previous source - Page 54

Al-Hudaybi agrees to the Military Technical College plan

1. According to al-Ansari, Saleh presented all his ideas with honesty and clarity to the leaders of the Brotherhood, led by the guide. As Saleh told his men, he wrote a 50-page memo to the guide, in which he presented his plan to renew the Brotherhood's thoughts to make access to power by military force a basic option. Saleh mentioned to his men that the guide agreed to the content of the memo.

Talal al-Ansari - Previous source - Page 57

1. Al-Ansari continues in his memoirs to say: "It is not logical to say that Saleh's history is secret and his tendency to revolution was hidden from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Brotherhood in Egypt embraced him and welcomed him. More importantly, the Brotherhood, in one of its closest homes - the house of Zainab al-Ghazali – made Saleh Sariya the leader of its only youth organization at that time. These are points that have not been raised before, because no one has brought up these new facts. Therefore, the Brotherhood deals with this strange story with great caution so far, and its historians and writers have completely hidden it, and say that they have all avoided exposure to this issue, despite the passage of a third of a century on it. But the truth is that the wheel has turned, and Dr. Saleh Abdullah Sariya took over the leadership of the first secret service which pledged allegiance to al-Hudaybi personally after the ordeal of 65-66. 

Talal al-Ansari – Previous source – Page 58

Brotherhood's advice to youth: Total denial

(5) The plan of the Muslim Brotherhood - as Talal al-Ansari relates - was for the defendants to deny everything that was attributed to them and to completely conceal any relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, provided that the group would launch a major legal and media campaign to defend them. In his testimony, which we presented previously, Talal al-Ansari says 25 years after the incident that he spent behind the walls, his comprehensive assessment of what happened. Al-Ansari says: "As the trials date approached, al-Ansari informed his son that he had hired for him an able and famous lawyer, the great professor Ibrahim Talaat, who went to the prison and actually met Talal. The Muslim Brotherhood had actively entered into the matter, and its men took over the management of the defense process and the burden of the lawyers. The Brotherhood drew up a defense plan and its lawyers and others took over it.

"Among the Brotherhood, their most famous lawyer at the time was Dr. Abdullah Rashwan, who committed the rest of the defense team to a defense plan that relied on two axes: the first in the facts and the subject, and the second, a political one. In the facts, the plan was based on denying the accusation and denying the coup attempt and portraying the issue as a conspiracy within the conflict process authority in Egypt, and that the story is that a group of students of the Military Technical College were holding religious seminars inside the college mosque, attended by civilians from outside the college, and that the conspirators took advantage of this to set them up. When Ibrahim Talaat came to meet Talal and asked him about the truth, he assured him of the perception decided by the Brotherhood's defense". 

"Now, however, and after all these years and al-Ansari's work as a lawyer, he believes that this defense plan was not legally successful, and that it carried a disregard for the court. The defense is that the history of the previous 20 years, through the trials of the Brotherhood and others, was filled with fabrication of cases from various agencies, and thus it is easy to convince the court that the series of fabrication continues.

"However, the matter in this case was completely different, as it was. It is clear to those who read the papers or follow the events that there is an organization, and that it actually moved, and there was no conspiracy."

Talal al-Ansari - Previous source - Page 95

Formation and support of the Arab Afghans

The role of the Brotherhood in the formation of the 'Afghan Arabs' phenomenon, which was the basic nucleus of what is known today as al-Qaeda, increased after 1982, when famous fugitive Mahdi Akef at the time, the official of the Committee on Communication with the Outside World, and the Americans, agreed that the the Brotherhood would assist the United States in implementing its goals in Afghanistan, by contributing to the expulsion of the Soviets, with the Americans returning the favor by facilitating the establishment of centers for the group in Europe, but not under the name of the Brotherhood directly. 

Despite the Brotherhood's public condemnation of the operations carried out by returnees from Afghanistan, everyone knew that this condemnation was not a clear cover-up of their suspicious role in establishing this phenomenon. 

Dr. Abdullah Azzam, a member of the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood and the godfather and de facto founder of al-Qaeda, says the following in his memoirs which were published on his website: 

"Brother Kamal al-Sananiri (one of the leaders of the Special Organization who died in prison in 1981 and whom the Brotherhood accused the security services of killing) came to him in 1980 when he was working at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia, and met him on the campus. He relied to him the instructions of the group's Guidance Office, which require him to go to Afghanistan to form what they called 'a rapid, armed deployment unit' of Arab and Muslim youth coming to fight in Afghanistan. 

Azzam adds that he wrapped up his work at King Abdulaziz University in accordance with this advice and went to Afghanistan, where he established the Mujahedeen Office which was the main nucleus of which al-Qaeda was later formed."

The matter did not stop with Abdullah Azzam. Here is Mustafa al-Sit Maryam, the al-Qaeda faqih known as Abu Musab al-Suri confirming in his memoirs that he published on a fundamentalist website that he came to Egypt with a group of Syrian brothers, where their brothers in Egypt trained them in guerrilla warfare in one of the areas of Moqqattam hills, three months before the assassination of President Sadat. Of course, we did not get a reply at the time to Talal al-Ansari, Abdullah Azzam and Abu Musab al-Suri. We will not expect to hear any response from the Brotherhood. Sorry, the group of dodgers. 

One of the deceptions of war is that the Muslim misleads the enemy of God with words so that he can defeat him and kill him."

See you in the next episode.