Omar Abdel-Rahman - Activities in The US

Activities in The US

Abdel-Rahman was issued a tourist visa to visit the U.S. despite his name being listed on a US State Department terrorist watch list. Rahman entered the United States, in July 1990, via Saudi Arabia, Peshawar, and Sudan. The State Department revoked his tourist visa on November 17. But in April 1991 the U.S. government granted him permanent resident status. After leaving America to go on an overseas trip, he tried to re-enter the U.S. in August 1991. At that point, U.S. officials recognized that he was on the lookout list and began the procedure to revoke his permanent resident status. The U.S. government allowed him to enter the country, as he had the right to appeal the decision to revoke his residency status. But he failed to appeal the decision and so on March 6, 1992, the U.S. government revoked his green card. He then requested political asylum. A hearing on that was held on January 20, 1993.

He traveled widely in the United States and Canada. Despite the U.S. support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, Abdel-Rahman was deeply anti-American and spoke out against it, safe in the knowledge that he was speaking Arabic and unmonitored by any law enforcement agency. He issued a fatwa in America that declared lawful the robbing of banks and killing of Jews in America. His sermons condemned Americans as the "descendants of apes and pigs who have been feeding from the dining tables of the Zionists, Communists, and colonialists". He called on Muslims to assail the West, "cut the transportation of their countries, tear it apart, destroy their economy, burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air, or land".

Preaching at three mosques in the New York City area, Abdel-Rahman was soon surrounded by a core group of devoted followers that included persons who became responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. One of Rahman's followers, El Sayyid Nosair, was linked to the assassination of Israeli nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League. He was subsequently acquitted of murder but convicted on gun possession charges.

Steven Emerson's 1994 television documentary Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America contains a video of Abdel-Rahman in Detroit calling for jihad against the "infidel".

In 1993, Egypt suffered a spate of terrorist attacks. That year, over 1,100 people were either killed or wounded due to a terrorist attack in Egypt (by comparison, the number for the prior year was only 322). According to the New York Times, these attacks had “shaken the Egyptian Government.”

Abdel-Rahman was the spiritual leader of the terrorists who were conducting these attacks (the terrorists were members of his Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya). At that time, he was recording his sermons in Brooklyn on cassette tapes and sending them to Egypt. These tapes were duplicated and given to tens of thousands of people in Cairo. In these tapes, Abdel-Rahman called for the murder of infidels, the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, and for Egypt to become a pure Islamic state.

“Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman uses New York as a base,” said Mamdouh Beltagui, the head of the state information service in Egypt. “He raises funds and sends money back to Egypt with couriers. He passes on messages to his followers, giving orders about what they should do next and who they should target. We do not understand why the U.S. authorities have allowed him to enter the country.”

The New York Times compared him to Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini was in Paris when he helped oust the Shah of Iran. He too sent recordings of himself to his country.

Nosair later stood trial as a co-conspirator of Rahman. Both men received life sentences for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, conspiracy to use explosives against New York landmarks, and plotting to assassinate U.S. politicians. Nosair was convicted of nine counts, including seditious conspiracy, murder of Kahane in aid of racketeering, attempted murder in aid of racketeering, attempted murder of a postal police officer, use of a firearm in a murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a murder, use of a firearm in an attempted murder, and possession of a firearm, and received life plus 15 years of imprisonment. Nosair's relatives obtained funds to pay for Nosair's defense from Osama bin Laden.