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Sadat's unrepentant killer aims for political future
CNN ^ | April 14, 2011 1:17 p.m. EDT | Ivan Watson and Mohamed Fadel Fahmy

Posted on 04/14/2011 4:34:09 PM PDT by keat

Zomor, Egypt (CNN) -- Aboud el Zomor watched the revolution in Tahrir Square with envy from his jail cell on a smuggled television.

Thirty years ago, he and a group of conspirators plotted an Islamic Revolution to overthrow the Egyptian government.

On October 6 1981, four of his associates succeeded in assassinating Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in a hail of gunfire during a military parade in Cairo. Zomor, an Egyptian intelligence officer gone rogue, was convicted for his role in the murder.

Three decades later, in his first interview with a U.S. television news organization since his recent release from prison, Zomor was unapologetic about killing Sadat.

But he announced he had renounced violent jihad and wanted to take advantage of the new atmosphere of freedom in Egypt to form a political party to compete in upcoming elections.

Sadat's assassination took place in Cairo during a military parade celebrating the anniversary of Egypt's 1973 war with Israel. In 1979, Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel that won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the fury of many Arabs who accused him of betraying their cause.

On the day of the assassination, Sadat watched from a pavilion, dressed in a blue military uniform. He was seated next to his vice president, Hosni Mubarak, as well as senior military commanders, government officials and foreign diplomats. Egypt's reaction to Mubarak's detention Sadat was more merciful. Sadat's time was much better than Mubarak's time

As the crowd looked up when fighter planes roared overhead, flying in formation trailing clouds of colored smoke, the assassins struck.

Four soldiers emerged from a passing truck, hurling grenades and advancing towards the pavilion, firing automatic weapons. Dozens of people were wounded and killed. Bullets riddled the body of the Egyptian president.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aboudelzomor; egypt; sadat

1 posted on 04/14/2011 4:34:13 PM PDT by keat
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To: keat

Amazing he isn’t dead!


2 posted on 04/14/2011 4:35:42 PM PDT by Anti-Bubba182
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To: keat

What’s the difference?! Here in the US we have an unrepentant domestic terrorist’s pal sitting in the WH!


3 posted on 04/14/2011 4:37:34 PM PDT by parisa
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To: keat

Obama pals around with terrorists...


4 posted on 04/14/2011 4:40:16 PM PDT by Crim (Palin / West '12)
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To: Anti-Bubba182
Amazing he isn’t dead!

I suspect the article exaggerates his role.

Twenty-four people were tried for the assassination. Two were acquitted. Seventeen were jailed. And, on 16 April 1982, two were shot and three were hanged.

Glasgow Herald, 16 April 1982

5 posted on 04/14/2011 4:53:46 PM PDT by cynwoody
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To: keat

Our MSM thinks that an Egypt where this lowlife can go into politics is just dandy. Is it any wonder most Americans think they aren’t on our side (that goes for both the Egyptians and the MSM).


6 posted on 04/14/2011 5:00:44 PM PDT by rbg81
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To: keat

Well all he has to do is get prostate cancer and he’s a free man.


7 posted on 04/14/2011 5:03:01 PM PDT by cicero2k
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To: cynwoody

I was stationed at the embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, when Sadat was assassinated. The embassy was in an absolute uproar as was the rest of the middle east. All of the living presidents went to Cairo for the funeral. Richard Nixon came to Jeddah and did a walkthrough of the embassy. I’ve got a great photo of my late wife shaking hand with Nixon.


8 posted on 04/14/2011 5:05:34 PM PDT by Ax
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To: FReepers
We Can Do This

Become A Monthly FR Donor

9 posted on 04/14/2011 5:20:11 PM PDT by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: keat; Ax; rbg81; parisa; Crim
I have a Word file of annual letters I send to a bunch of papers each year. Here is the one I have for Sadat.

Egypt and Israel Peace Treaty

As we recognize March 26 as the anniversary of peace between Egypt and Israel, and applaud Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize, we should remember the truly worthy recipient, Anwar Sadat. Through three wars elements in the Arab world had used Egyptian blood for vicarious satisfaction of their hatred of Israeli Jews. By conclusion of the 1973 war, Sadat was certain Egypt's price for Arab victory would also include destruction of the Aswan Dam resulting in 100,000’s Egyptian deaths.

Sadat brought an end to this brutal cycle, and looming catastrophe with his historic trip to Jerusalem on November 7, 1977 to begin a process, which he formalized with the Camp David Accords the following September, and with the peace treaty of 1979. For his extraordinary statesmanship, the Arab League suspended Egyptian membership, and Sadat was assassinated by terrorists in 1981.

In comparison, Begin risked little politically, and in spite of Sadat’s exceedingly gracious statement, Carter just served milk and cookies.

10 posted on 04/14/2011 5:34:03 PM PDT by Retain Mike
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To: Retain Mike
Carter just served milk and peanut butter cookies.
11 posted on 04/14/2011 5:46:47 PM PDT by reg45
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To: keat; Ax; rbg81; parisa; Crim

This letter also seems to fit the article.

Forcing Mubarak from Egypt and Ben Ali from Tunisia should result in bad outcomes, and be the pattern for Middle East unrest as it spreads to Libya, Syria, and elsewhere. The demise of these dictators precipitate political wildernesses resembling the lesson ignored 32 years ago when Carter discarded the Shah of Iran. The Obama Administration and other media sources encouraged, and applaud the demise of these oligarchies, but studiously ignore evidence of attendant brittle economic, social, and political environments. In the Middle East the most violent aspiring Islamic and secular totalitarians should exploit these strains to follow traditional malevolent roads to power energized with lethal political intrigues and religious heresies. Notice that so far these fragile oligarchies have all been secular governments, which increases the probability that in reaction replacements would be sociopathic Islamic regimes.

About 1100 AD Hassan bin Sabah, who inherited the Assassin’s Guild, enlightened Islamist societies to terrorism as foundational statecraft for political prosperity. Philosophical and religious lawyers retained their lives, and obtained support for dictators by backwards engineering the Koran into useful totalitarian heterodoxies. Concurrently, foundational thought including Jews, Christians and Muslims as ‘People of the Book” became hazardous. Concurrently, Saladin’s Sufism stressing individual relationship with God, and exalting individuals in society became marginalized. Concurrently, extraordinary Arab achievements in mathematics, philosophy, science, and medicine submerged within authoritarian and feral societies. Omar Khayyam, Ibn al-Haytham, and Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Sina had no successors for uncompromising, independent thought. Such simultaneous extinctions over a century provide compelling evidence of a pervasive contagion subverting the Middle East.

What remained was bloody electioneering among aspiring totalitarians causing them to grasp and retain their power by crafting superior alliances of human cunning and animal brutality. For them dazzling spectacle and mercurial oratory belie principled commitment to a continuum where politics is war without bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed. Once acquired these skills easily replicate through generations for managing secular philosophies from Democracy to Communism. Why would the Muslim Brotherhood or any organizations like Ai Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and their successors ever abandon strategies proven throughout a millennium? The natural result in our present time establishes “The Democratic (or) Islamic Peoples Republic of Whatever”.


12 posted on 04/14/2011 5:58:26 PM PDT by Retain Mike
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To: reg45

You know, you are probably right. Well, there is another good reason for me to reject him. I have always been doubtful of anyone, who did not hold chocolate and chocolate chip cookies in the highest regard.


13 posted on 04/14/2011 6:03:59 PM PDT by Retain Mike
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

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