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Salafis Push for a Puritanical Egypt
(Los Angeles Times) Jeffrey Fleishman - The brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, Mohammed, is an unflinching man whose aim, as a Salafi, is to impose Islamic law on Egypt. He was imprisoned for more than a decade on charges of attempting to overthrow the state. Once at the edges of Egypt's political spectrum, puritanical Islamists - Salafis - have been emboldened by the nation's revolution. Morgan Gohary, who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, returned home after years as a warrior in a shifting international holy war. "Having a parliament is blasphemy," Gohary said. "Egypt needs someone like Osama bin Laden." "The secularists want Egypt to look like Europe and America," Gohary said. "But only Islamic rules should apply. God is the ruler, not the people. We battled Mubarak over this for years and this is why we killed Sadat." Gohary recently startled Egypt by calling for the destruction of the pyramids. He called them idols forbidden by Islam, much like the Buddhist statues the Taliban blew up in 2001.