Blind cleric jailed for terror plots

Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheik convicted of plotting terror attacks in the United States in the 1990s, died Saturday in a federal prison where he was serving a life sentence. He was 78.

Abdel-Rahman died at 5:40 a.m. after suffering from diabetes and coronary artery disease, said Kenneth McKoy at the Federal Correction Complex in Butner, N.C. The inmate had been at the complex for seven years.

The cleric’s daughter, Asmaa, announced the death in a series of Arabic-language tweets: “We are saddened by your departure, father,” she wrote.

Abdel-Rahman was a key spiritual leader for a generation of Islamic militants and became a symbol for radicals during two decades in American prisons.

Blind since infancy from diabetes, Abdel-Rahman was the leader of one of Egypt’s most feared militant groups, the Gamaa Islamiya, which led a campaign of violence aimed at bringing down ex-President Hosni Mubarak.

Abdel-Rahman fled Egypt to the U.S. in 1990 and began teaching in a New Jersey mosque. A circle of his followers were convicted in the Feb. 26, 1993, truck bombing of New York’s World Trade Center that killed six people — eight years before al-Qaida’s suicide plane hijackers brought the towers down.

Later in 1993, Abdel-Rahman was arrested by authorities who accused him and others of conspiring to wage a string of bombings against the United Nations and other New York landmarks, including the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels.

Abdel-Rahman arrived in the United States in 1990, even though he was on a list of suspected terrorists and banned from the country. He was given permanent residence status under the name Omar Ahmed Ali.

AFP FILE Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman died Saturday in a U.S. prison facility.