The Islambuli Brigades have owned up blasts in two Russian air liners and close to a Moscow metro station.
Many militants of the Islambuli Brigades have come from the Tanzim al Jihad, an underground Muslim group, established in Egypt in the mid-1970s, Professor Hamza said in a Novosti interview.
One of the Tanzim activists, Senior Lieutenant Haled Islambuli of the Egyptian Army, won sinister renown among his fellow extremists as he masterminded the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in October 1981. The group that has now shifted to Russia for terrorist outrages is named after him, says the political expert.
Aiman al-Zawahiri and Sheikh Omar Abd-al-Rahman, who eventually became Ossama bin Laden's right-hand men, also had been active on the Tanzim. Omar Abd-al-Rahman is now in US custody, and has been indicted on masterminding the Twin Tower tragedy in New York City, September 11, 2001.
The Tanzim al Jihad split in the mid-1990s. Aiman al-Zawahiri, second-biggest leader of the Al Qayeda, assumed leadership of the most radical breakaway faction. Muhammad Islambuli, Haled's younger brother, was alleged for some time to head the Islambuli Brigades. No reliable information is available on the actual leader, says Professor Nizar Hamza.
