WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- There's continuing uncertainty about claims at the weekend that an Egyptian Islamic group, al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, has merged with al-Qaida.
A video, released Saturday by al-Qaida's media arm, al-Sahab, carries an interview with an Egyptian mujahed named Mohammed Khalil al-Hakayma, who goes by the nomme de guerre Abu Jihad al-Misri. The video has an introduction by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's number two, and it has drawn virulent denials from the official leadership of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya.
According to a translation prepared by the SITE Institute, Misri says in the interview that a group of hardliners from al-Jamaa al-Islamiya had joined al-Qaida, "to help our great scholar, His Eminence the unshakeable Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman, languishing in the dungeons of the American prisons, and to repel the attacking enemy which is occupying the countries of the Muslims."
Rahman, known as the blind sheikh, has been in U.S. federal prison since his 1995 conviction in a conspiracy to blow up New York City landmarks.
Misri says the foremost mujahed from the Egyptian group merging with al-Qaida is Mohammed al-Islambouli, and Zawahiri's introduction promises a message from him soon.
According to al-Jazeera, Islambouli is the younger brother of Khalid al-Islambouli, who was executed for his part in the 1979 assassination of then Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat. The younger Islambouli left Egypt in the mid-1980s and is believed to have been in Afghanistan working with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Sunday, however, al-Jamaa al-Islamiya -- whose leaders declared from jail in 1998 that they had abandoned armed struggle -- posted a message on their Web site in Arabic denying any link with al-Qaida.
According to one translation, the message specifically denies that Rahman is with the breakaway group. "It is well known (he) was and still is one of the staunchest supporters" of the decision to abandon armed jihad, says the message.
It remains unclear how much of a presence the breakaway faction have on the ground in Egypt.
Sheikh Abdel Akher Hammad, a former al-Jamaa al-Islamiya leader, told al-Jazeera from Germany that support for the merger was limited. "If (some) brothers ... have joined, then this is their personal view and I don't think that most ... members share that same opinion."
