Egypt's militants now under spotlight

Fearless, deeply pious and embittered by years of incarceration and torture, Sayed Qutb was hanged in 1966 for plotting to overthrow the state.

Egypt killed the man, but his ideas lived on to inspire generations of Muslim militants around the world.

The long list of Islamic radicals and groups influenced by Qutb’s writings and suspected of acts of terrorism - including the September 11 attacks in the United States - poses a question: Why does Egypt produce so many of the world’s leading Muslim terrorists?

Among them is Ayman al-Zawahri, the top lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. Al-Zawahri reportedly led a discussion group on Qutb’s writings in the 1970s. Qutb’s thoughts also provided the core of The Missing Duty, a book in which Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag, a conspirator in President Anwar Sadat’s 1981 assassination, attempted to justify the killing.

An impoverished, overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 65 million, Egypt has been battling militant groups off and on for more than a century. Some think its knack for breeding Muslim terrorists comes from its political and cultural weight in the region.

‘‘Despite its poverty, Egypt is the most important Arab nation, not in terms of wealth but in terms of the capabilities of its people in every field,’’ said Hussein Ameen, an expert on Islamic groups and a former Egyptian ambassador to Algeria, itself a nation torn by militancy.

Egypt has been the Arab world’s cultural and artistic capital since the early years of the last century. Under President Gamal Abdul Nasser, it became a beacon of nationalism and a key source of support for anti-colonial movements in Asia and Africa in the 1950s and 60s.

Its own modern-era Islamic revival movement began in the second half of the 19th century, well ahead of others in the region. Egypt spawned the oldest fundamentalist Islamic movement, the outlawed but still tolerated Muslim Brotherhood - in which Qutb was active in the 1950s and 1960s.

Bin Laden’s top lieutenants include al-Zawahri and Mohammed Atef, another Egyptian. By various estimates, Egyptians could make up anywhere from several hundred to half of the 3,000 to 5,000 fighters of bin Laden’s al-Qaida group.

In a videotape shown after the first US air strikes on Afghanistan, al-Zawahri said: ‘‘People of America, your government is leading you into a losing battle.

Remember that your government was defeated in Vietnam, fled in panic from Lebanon, rushed out of Somalia and was slapped across the face in Aden.’’

Al-Zawahri’s words echoed Qutb, who developed a profound hatred for the West during a mission to the United States to study its education system in 1949-51.

Viewing America as decadent and materialistic, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood on returning home. Soon, the one time literary critic was the group’s propaganda chief.

Qutb’s 1964 book, Milestones became the bible of Muslim militant groups the world over.

Passionate and intense, the book introduced the idea of jihad, or holy struggle, as a duty for all Muslims almost akin to the faith’s basic tenets known as the Five Pillars.

It also redefined ‘‘jahiliya’’, the term used by Muslims for pre-Islamic Arabia and anywhere people live in ignorance. In Qutb’s view, Muslim rulers and societies that do not strictly adhere to Islamic teachings are living in jahiliya, meaning that fighting them is justified.

‘‘People are not Muslims, even if they proclaim to be, so long as they live the life of jahiliya,’’ he wrote in Milestones, which is banned in Egypt and most other Arab states.

Not long after Qutb’s 1966 execution, Egyptian groups began to put his words into practice. The 1970s witnessed the abduction and murder of a Cabinet minister and several botched but bloody attempts to overthrow the government.

Moderate Islamic thinker Fahmi Howeidi and other experts believe economic woes, high unemployment and lack of democracy also contributed to the shift to violence.

President Anwar Sadat’s 1981 assassination at a military parade opened a war of attrition pitting Muslim militants against the government. It continues until this day.

Egypt, governed under emergency laws since Sadat was gunned down, has dealt with the militants with what human rights groups see as excessive force. It sent dozens of militants to the gallows.

Hundreds of militants left the country to escape ruthless Egyptian security agents who have been accused of torturing suspects.

‘‘There’s so much political suppression in Egypt that an entire generation is filled with frustration, desperation and hatred for society,’’ Howeidi said.

Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president of 20 years, is a close US ally who has long called for a global fight against terrorism and often criticised Western nations for offering asylum to wanted Muslim militants.

Himself the target of at least one assassination attempt by Muslim militants - in Ethiopia in 1995 - Mubarak argues it’s the stalemate in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that lures young men to the dark world of terror.

‘‘We cannot stop terrorism without solving the Palestinian question,’’ he told Egyptian clerics in October.