Atef, Muhammad

▪ 2002

Sobhi Abu Sitta 

      Egyptian-born Islamist militant (b. 1944?, Egypt—d. Nov. 14/15, 2001, near Kabul, Afg.), was believed to have been a close associate of Osama bin Laden (in early 2001 his daughter married Bin Laden's son) and chief military strategist for the Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaeda. He reportedly trained as a police officer before joining the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad, members of which assassinated Pres. Anwar as-Sadat in 1981. Atef, whose other suspected noms de guerre included Abu Hafs al-Misri and Abu Khadijah, fled to Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 1999 he was one of more than 100 defendants convicted of subversion in Egypt and sentenced to prison in absentia. Intelligence sources indicated that Atef was involved in terrorist attacks on Americans in Somalia as well as the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the terrorist attacks in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The U.S. government placed him on the FBI's list of “most wanted terrorists” and offered a $5 million reward for his capture. He was reported killed in a bombing raid on an al-Qaeda stronghold outside Kabul.

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