PERSPECTIVE ON TERRORISM : What Makes the Sheik’s Men Tick : The New York bombing can be seen as a logical extension of the war being waged to isolate Egypt from the West.

If the World Trade Center bombing is, in fact, linked to a radical fundamentalist group guided by Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, then it would mark the opening of a new front in the war to expunge Western culture and American influence from the Middle East.

But why? Why now? And why the World Trade Center?

Why? Terrorists in Islamic garb snuff out lives at random in hopes of severing Western ties in the Islamic world. They believe, as do nonviolent Muslim fundamentalists, that Western influence, from politics to culture, has poisoned Muslim society. They are obsessed with America as the “Great Satan” and view the Zionist enterprise in Israel as only one element of America’s plan to infect Islamic society and subjugate the world’s Muslim community.

Militants and moderates differ only on the appropriate means to the end. Leaders of the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood, a 65-year-old Egypt-based organization whose adherents number in the millions, generally eschew violence and profess an evolutionary approach to political change, with emphasis on social reform. For militants like Sheik Abdul Rahman, that strategy is too passive and bound to fail. What is needed is revolution--swift, sure blows that would break the will of America and its agents, paving a sure path for the assumption of power by true believers. That was the idea behind the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. His killers, supported by a religious decree issued by Sheik Abdul Rahman, believed that their actions would unleash a chain-reaction of violent protest that would overthrow the blasphemous secularists. They were wrong.

But since then, the militants have benefited from the experience of Afghanistan, where an alliance of Islamic fundamentalist moujahedeen succeeded in expelling the occupation forces of a superpower. From that episode came important lessons of persistence, organization and strategic planning.

These lessons have been put into action during the current wave of violence in Egypt. When the terrorists kill tourists in a Cairo cafe (as happened the same day as the New York bombing), their goal is to undermine Egypt’s tourist trade, its largest source of foreign exchange, thereby shaking the economic foundations of America’s foremost Arab ally. When they murder inside the United States, their objective is to break Americans’ will to maintain commitments and interests in the Middle East. Their overreaching goal is no less ambitious today than it was in Afghanistan: to evict a godless superpower from territory once ruled by Islam.

Why now? There are at least three complementary reasons why militants may have chosen to strike at America on Feb. 26.

This year, Feb. 26 fell a few days before the 10th day of the holy month of Ramadan. On that fateful date in the year 624, the Prophet Mohammed began preparations for the battle of Badr, the first victory in the campaign that ended with his triumphant entry into Mecca. In 1973, the 10th day of Ramadan fell on Oct. 6, the day Sadat crossed the Suez and launched Operation Badr against Israel. And it was on the 1981 anniversary of the October War that Abdul Rahman’s followers assassinated Sadat.

Second, the present-day followers of Abdul Rahman may have been moved to act because of the opening of deportation hearings against him in January. There are repeated but hazy reports in the Egyptian press that the sheik had worked with the anti-Soviet moujahedeen. He is reported to have been in Peshawar, Pakistan, a main moujahedeen base, just before traveling to Sudan to apply for a U.S. visa. To him, obtaining the visa almost surely confirmed some sort of American patronage. To militants steeped in conspiracy theory, the “Great Satan” does not make the sort of mistakes alleged by the State Department to have been the reason for granting the visa to someone on its list of suspected terrorists. The sheik’s imminent deportation may have meant that America was now filing for divorce from its marriage of convenience with Islam. So his men struck first.

Third, on a more strategic level, the expansion of the war against the West from the cafes of Cairo to the towers of New York suggests a high state of confidence and audacity among the militants. Having rattled one end of the U.S.-Egypt alliance by targeting Egypt’s tourist industry, they now seek to rattle the other end. To them, the bombing of the trade center would be the functional equivalent of Afghan moujahedeen shooting down Soviet warplanes with Stinger missiles. It means they believe that the battle may soon reach its climax.

Why the World Trade Center? As distinct from the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument, there is probably no good reason, except that an underground garage afforded access. The militants may have believed that destruction of a symbol of American strength and prestige will press an already edgy America to retreat into an isolationist shell and leave the Islamic world alone.

More particularly, targeting the trade center would fit the radicals’ strategy of economic subversion in Egypt. The largest sources of Egypt’s foreign exchange are oil exports, tourism and U.S. aid. With the oil market in a glut, revenue is already down. Terrorism has cut into tourism income by more than half. Attacking the World Trade Center, citadel of Western capitalism, may have been conceived as part of the plan to shake the West’s commitment to Egypt’s financial security and, by extension, the regime’s stability.

If so, our only appropriate response is to stay the course. Maintaining American support for allies like Hosni Mubarak will ensure that extremism remains the preserve of a radical fringe, not a ruling elite, in the Middle East.