The Assassins

Cairo reveals their plots

FIVE GROUPS PARTICIPATED IN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION TO SEIZE POWER, cried the headline in Cairo's semiofficial newspaper Al Ahram. Last week, in a kind of interim report on its investigations into the assassination of Anwar Sadat, government officials said the plot was far wider than had originally been suspected. Right after the killing, officials had insisted that only four men were involved. But according to President Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded Sadat, at least 700 people were part of a web of revolutionaries whose general aim was to overthrow the government. Said Mubarak: "Security in our country is my first concern."

Mubarak's government, which is clearly trying to arouse public sentiment against Muslim extremists, claims that the five groups were all fundamentalist organizations linked by a conspiracy "to fight the government and seize power." The ambitions of the conspirators were thwarted on Sept. 25, when many were arrested during Sadat's wide-ranging crackdown on dissenters. Concluding that they were not strong enough to stage a coup, the plotters reportedly concentrated on just assassinating the President. After his death, they also thought of dropping bombs from rooftops on the funeral procession as it wound its way through Cairo's streets. As it turned out, the funeral was held on the carefully guarded parade grounds because of the government's fears that precisely such tactics might be used.

The plotters were well financed and well armed. One ringleader of the group, Abboud Zomor, an ex-army major who deserted, was said to have plotted several ways of killing Sadat. He considered shooting the President at his rest house in the Nile Delta. He also thought of exploding a truckload of butane gas on a Cairo street as Sadat drove by.

According to the government, the plan that the conspirators eventually put into effect was the work of an electrical engineer named Abdel Sallam Sallah Farag. He suggested having First Lieut. Khaled Ahmed Shawki el-Istambuli , a member of the Takfir wa Hijra (Atonement and Holy Flight) group, and three others shoot Sadat at the military-day parade. This plan was approved by Abboud Zomor in his hideout near the pyramids of Giza. It was also sanctioned by a fundamentalist group in the southern city of Asyut, which had launched attacks on police stations in Asyut soon after Sadat was killed. Finally, the plan was accepted by the plotters' spiritual leader, a blind mufti named Omar Ahmed Abdel Rahman, who had $20,000 in crisp new bills concealed in his underclothing when he was arrested after the assassination.

Once Sadat had been killed, a leader of the group, Dr. Amin Youssef el Demeri, asked Abboud Zomor to delay any move to overthrow the government until a more careful plan could be worked out. Whether the conspirators were strong enough to take over at that point is doubtful. In any case, security forces moved in and arrested many of the plotters before they could take further action.

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