November 24, 2003	Monday	Ramazan 28, 1424

CAIRO: When religious militants massacred 58 foreign tourists in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings in 1997, their organization promised more violence would follow.

Instead, leaders of al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, whose members carried out the Luxor attack, have taken to the printing presses to renounce violence, condemn Al Qaeda and ditch the idea that taking state power is the key to making Egypt more devout.

“There should not be anyone in our ranks who thinks about restarting the wheel of violence again,” wrote al-Gama’a leaders, who first called for a ceasefire before the 1997 Luxor attack even as some members pledged to fight on.

One of their books, published in September under the title “River of Memories”, lays out a radical shift in the ideas of the largest group to take part in a bloody insurgency that cost the lives of 1,200 people in the 1990s and which aimed to set up a strict Islamic order in Egypt.

Some analysts say their rejection of violence might help tame radicals outside Egypt, in the same way that Egyptian 20th century extremists inspired today’s militants such as Saudi-born Osama bin Laden or his Egyptian aide Ayman al-Zawahri.

“Al-Gama’a leaders are well known and respected in the Arab world. When such people publish new arguments, for sure it will affect some of their friends in other Arab countries,” militant expert Diaa Rashwan said.

That could offer hope to others, like Saudi Arabia, facing a wave of militancy blamed on al Qaeda.

Saudi Arabia has pledged to use an “iron fist” to deal with its militants, similar to the approach Egypt has used to crush its own militant problem, partly through applying emergency laws in place since extremists killed President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

DRAWING SCORN: But al-Gama’a’s message of moderation has drawn scorn from some extremists, including Osama bin Laden. Some of them say the government, which still arrests groups it accuses of militancy, co-opted the group’s leaders during their years in prison.

In a recent tape attributed to Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader attacked those in Arab states, including Egypt, who “call for the peaceful democratic solution in dealing with apostate governments or the invading crusaders and Jews, instead of fighting in the path of God”.

Rashwan said the remarks, broadcast in October, were partly aimed at al-Gama’a, which in a second book published in September extended criticism of Al Qaeda’s tactics by condemning bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco in May. Al Qaeda was blamed for the attack in the Saudi capital that killed nine Americans.

In the second book, called “The Riyadh Explosions — Judgments and Effects”, al-Gama’a leaders said US “oppression” of Iraq and Afghanistan did not justify killing Americans because of their nationality.

“These explosions put all Islamists in a war with the West...A war (the Islamists) did not want,” they wrote.

But Egyptian scholar Yasser al-Sirry said the moderate stance of al-Gama’a leaders had been shaped by government incentives, not religious conviction.

London-based Sirry said many militants in Egypt had merely gone into “hibernation” and not renounced violence.

Emad Shahin, an expert in political Islam at the American University in Cairo, said a return to violence by al-Gama’a was unlikely partly because Egypt’s society had become more outwardly religious even without implementing strict religious rule.

Some analysts also say al-Gama’a’s violent tactics of the past alienated most Egyptians rather than winning it support.

The al-Gama’a leadership now say seizing state power is not necessarily the way to make society more Islamic. —Reuters