Ali unveils Daesh’s roots during lecture at French parliament

PARIS – Chairman of the Center for Middle East Studies in Paris Abdul Rahim Ali threw light Monday on the beginnings of Daesh as a terrorist organization.

The idea of creating such an organization, he said, started at the time of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Jama’at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, in Iraq in 2003.

Ali added at a lecture at the French parliament that Daesh is an offshoot of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad Group, which was established in 1998 and then merged into al-Qaeda.

Islamic Jihad, he said, believed in the importance of confronting the “Near Enemy”, namely Arab regimes, not the “Far Enemy”, namely the US and Europe, like al-Qaeda believed.

Nonetheless, the new merger masterminded attacks in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in October of 1998, Ali said.

It also masterminded the attack on the American naval destroyer USS Cole which was docked in the Port of Aden, Yemen, in 2000, and then the 9/11 attacks in Washington and New York, he added.

Ali’s lecture at the French parliament focused on post-Daesh terrorism, the dangers inherent in terrorism financing, and the implications of this financing for Europe.

The lecture also focused on the role the Muslim Brotherhood and its international organization play in backing terrorist activities worldwide.