EGYPTIANS are shocked at the Biden Regime’s decision to remove dangerous Islamic group from the foreign terrorist blacklist

In Egypt, critics say it is naïve and risky for the United States to believe that the group Gama’a Islamiyya (affiliated with the late Omar Abdel Rahman – the Blind Sheikh – behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) meets that criteria of no longer being engaged in terrorism or terrorist activity and does not retain the capability and intent to do so. And they fear its removal from the list could help it revive.

IPT  (h/t Marvin W) Even though the group’s spiritual leader, Omar Abdel Rahman (Blind Sheikh), died in an American prison, the State Department should consider that “his base has not been eliminated and [that it] may be waiting for the right time and circumstances to return to active pursuit of their agenda, even under a different name,” New York-based human rights lawyer and national security analyst Irina Tsukerman told the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Abdul-Rahman was the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He died in prison in 2017 after being convicted in a plot to bomb other New York landmarks. But Gama’a Islamiyya still has a following and ideology strong enough to rise from the ashes, Egyptians say.

“This is not a timely measure,” Bashir Abdel Fattah, a researcher at Egypt’s state-affiliated Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told Emirati daily Al Ain.“And it undermines efforts to combat terrorism, especially since these organizations have not completely given up their practice of terrorism.”

Egyptian TV anchor Nashaat El-Deehy described the U.S. decision as a “wrong path.”

“Today when the United States declare they are delisting the Gama’a Islamiyya from their terrorist groups, we stay ‘STOP, you are wrong, you are committing a political and a security sin,'” El-Deehy said. “You will pay the price because those who raise snakes and scorpions will sure one day get bitten.”

Removing the group from the list of terrorist organizations “will incentivize more people to return to the fold, as it removes another obstacle to fundraising, recruitment, and exploitation of political loopholes abroad,” Tsukerman said. “The Muslim Brotherhood’s international apparatus, now largely located outside Egypt, [also] will be strengthened as a result.”

The United States first designated the organization in 1997. That year, Gama’a Islamiyya carried out the Luxor massacre, killing 62 tourists, including 36 Swiss citizens and people from Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France.

It helped recruit the gunman who assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981. It also assassinated Egypt’s Parliament Speaker Rifaat el-Mahgoub in 1990, and attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995 in Addis Ababa. Several members joined the Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviet invasion and later joined al-Qaeda in 2006.

When Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government was forced out in 2013 after a year in power, Gama’a Islamiyya members allied with the group and orchestrated violent attacks. Some of its members still act as lone wolves in Egypt. In April, one of its former members stabbed a Christian priest to death in Alexandria. He received a death sentence on May 18.

Last year, Egyptian courts confirmed a 2018 court ruling which lists the group and its members among Egyptian terrorist groups. A separate list of 164 individual terrorists includes Gama’a leaders Mohamed al-Islambouli, Tarek el Zomor and Assem Abdul Maged.

While the current Egyptian government has cracked down on violent Islamic extremist groups, “it is naive to believe that all of them and their hold on various institutions in Egypt can be eliminated instantaneously,” Tsukerman said.

Egyptians have paid a hefty price fighting groups such as Gama’a Islamiyya and the Muslim Brotherhood. Until recently, hard efforts and sacrifices managed to contain the cycle of terrorist attacks in the country.  The U.S. administration decision may only help to reignite the activities of one of the world’s most notorious terrorist groups.

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‘Jihadi’ Joe Biden takes the Islamic terror group affiliated with 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind, the Blind Sheikh, off the U.S. Watch List of foreign terrorist organizations