Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

2 • ABU HAFS AL MASRI BRIDGADEbetween Abdul Rahman and his followers secretly taped by an informerof the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealedhis discussing the relative merits of various targets for this terroristbombing campaign.On 27 August 1993 Abdul Rahman was indicted in U.S. FederalDistrict Court for leading a conspiracy to wage a bombing campaignupon the United States. The trial of Abdul Rahman, along with 11other defendants charged with the bombing of the World Trade Centerand for the conspiracy to bomb New York landmarks, began on 10January 1995. On 1 October 1995 Abdul Rahman was convicted ofseditious conspiracy, solicitation and conspiracy to murder EgyptianPresident Hosni Mubarak, solicitation to attack U.S. military installations,and conspiracy to conduct the bombing campaign against NewYork tunnels and landmarks. On 17 January 1996 he was sentencedto life imprisonment for his role in the Holland Tunnel bomb plotand is currently serving his sentence in a U.S. federal prison.Abdul Rahman was also the spiritual mentor of El Sayyid A. Nosair,who assassinated Jewish Defense League (JDL) founder RabbiMeir Kahane on 5 November 1990. Nosair was convicted for themurder of Kahane on 1 October 1995.In March 2003 U.S. federal prosecutors charged Lynne F. Stewart,Abdul Rahman’s attorney, with having passed messages in 2000from him to the Islamic Group, in violation of restrictions to preventhim from communicating with other terrorists, instructing the IslamicGroup to end its 1999 cease-fire with the Egyptian governmentthat it had made following the Luxor Temple massacre. She wasconvicted of making false statements to federal authorities and conspiracyto defraud the government on 10 February 2005.ABU HAFS AL MASRI BRIDGADE. Name under which creditwas claimed for the 2004 Madrid bombings and the 2005 Londonsubway bombings through messages printed in London’s Arabicdaily Al Quds Al Arabi. The name is taken from the nom de guerre ofMohammad Atef, the al Qa’eda leader killed in Afghanistan by U.S.aerial bombings in November 2001. The group also falsely claimedcredit for the 2003 summer power blackouts in North America,which are known to have been caused by technical glitches ratherthan sabotage. For this reason, analysts doubt that there is an actualorganization behind the name.