Anger Simmers Below Surface for a Convicted Terrorist’s Son

Abdullah Omar Abdel Rahman’s father is serving a life sentence for conspiring to unleash a campaign of terror on Manhattan in the 1990s. But without hesitation, the son condemns this week’s attacks.

Still, like other longtime critics of the United States in this region, his expressions of sympathy barely paper over a deep hostility toward America. In his case, it’s personal because he thinks his father, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, was framed.

“If anything happens to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, this will also bring more danger onto the United States,” the 27-year-old religion student promised in an interview at his home Friday.

From the moment the devastation of Tuesday’s acts of terror became clear, words of condolence have poured in to the United States from some of the most unlikely places, including Iran, Syria and Sudan. But there has been a recurring subtext: that the United States brought this tragedy on itself and that a premature retaliatory strike would only serve as further provocation.

At Friday prayers in Tehran, the Iranian capital, for example, sermon leader Imam Kahani said: “With so many defenseless and innocent men, women and children engulfed in flames, who can witness such an event and remain unaffected? We are all sorry.”

But he said that it must also be remembered that the “real terrorists are the Zionists,” and he added: “Arrogant actions need to be stood in front of. Arrogant behavior provokes the oppressed.”

In Khartoum, Sudan, the message at Friday prayers was similar. “The superpower of the world forgot God and thought it was invincible and controlled the economy of the world, but they have been hit in the heart of their economy by ordinary people using their own planes,” said the imam of Jamma Alkabir Mosque.

And in a front-page editorial in the pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat, Editor in Chief George Semaan wrote that the U.S. will not be able to uproot terrorism “unless it changes its perspective on how it builds its interests and how it defends them, by building a network of relationships that takes into consideration the interest of others, who are weak and who have rights but are incapable of imposing these interests or these rights.”

These sentiments simmered just below the surface for the son of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, spiritual leader of what was one of Egypt’s most radical groups, Gamaa al Islamiya, and now a U.S. prisoner for conspiring to simultaneously blow up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland commuter tunnels and other targets. He was convicted in 1995.

The sheik was considered the spiritual leader of the group that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, leaving six people dead and more than 1,000 injured and marking the beginning of the end of America’s post-Cold War feeling of invulnerability.

“We are saying to the States: ‘You must release Sheik Abdel Rahman from prison. His health is getting worse. He is in danger now, and that is getting Muslims angry all over the world,’ ” his son said. “The second reason is the judgment against him is wrong. That was clear to us when the World Trade Center exploded again and he is in prison.”

The sheik, who is blind and in poor health, was persecuted by U.S. authorities even though all he did was preach and offer counseling, his son said. He acknowledged that his father “promoted jihad,” but he insisted that Westerners misunderstand that concept, reducing it to the shorthand translation “holy war.” First, he said, jihad involves a war within oneself, to combat sin. Then, he said, jihad calls for fighting against those forces that seek to undermine Islam.

“My father said that he wouldn’t fight anyone unless he did something that makes him have to fight, like violating Islam,” Abdel Rahman said.

He acknowledged that he understands the arguments of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire whose name has been linked to acts of terror on U.S. targets. Bin Laden has said his mission is, in part, to drive U.S. forces out of Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s most sacred sites. The U.S. has military bases in the country.

“From his point of view, this is not terrorism, because he told them to get out of Saudi Arabian land,” the son said. “So he showed them what he could do.”