I hereby provide a speck of evidence that some would dismiss as “anecdotal” — a popular putdown when you’re made uncomfortable by what someone is reporting. I know an Egyptian woman, very well educated, widely traveled — about as “Westernized” and “liberal” as you can get in Arab society — and she e-mailed me to tell me, essentially, that Osama bin Laden, even if he really existed, couldn’t have planned and carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, it must have been you-know-who: the Jews, or, more specifically, the Israelis, the Zionists. The father of terrorist Muhammed Atta has said the same thing — It couldn’t have been my son; it must have been the Jews. The father is a distinguished Cairo lawyer.
Egyptian anti-terrorist police have foiled a second wave of suicide hijacker attacks - this one against "various world capitals." The plot was thwarted through the arrest of 12 al Qaeda-linked suspects in Egypt, according to local press reports. The suspects were part of a terrorist cell that was conspiring to commit "simultaneous attacks in various world capitals," said the report, in the weekly journal Al Mussawar ... Islamic terrorism has a firm footing in Egypt; the Egyptian Islamic Jihad - of which Atta was a member - is headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor believed to be the brains behind al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.