The ideology of radical Islam was developed in Egypt, and its cadres were hardened in the prisons of the country’s authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak. But as antigovernment demonstrators battled it out with government supporters in Tahrir Square on Wednesday, jihadi groups have found themselves curiously on the outside.
As Mr. Mubarak’s government teetered, jihadis wrestled with what it meant to see a principal adversary assailed by an uprising whose agenda they do not share, with a potential slate of candidates they do not support waiting to take his place.
The ambivalence of the radical groups played out this week in their Web forums, a central organizational tool for the movement along with calls to use the chaos to their advantage.
At Muslm.net, a Web site associated with Al Qaeda in Egypt, the call was for foreign youths to come to Egypt to join the jihad.
“Hey, brothers, the fall of Egypt’s tyrant is a fall of the earth’s tyrants,” it urged. “This is the time to slaughter the cow.”
That, one expert said, was about the most they could make of the crisis.
“Like always, Al Qaeda’s online movement is viewing this through consummately opportunist lenses,” said Jarret Brachman, a counterterrorism consultant and author of the book “Global Jihadism,” who monitors jihadi Web sites.
Elsewhere, Web postings urged jihadis in Egypt to attack the Arish-Ashkelon gas pipeline, which goes to Israel. “This is a chance to stop the supply to the Israelites,” urged a writer on the Shumukh al-Islam forum, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist Web sites.
In Yemen, where Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula is stronger, the group posted a videotaped speech by its deputy leader Abu Sufyan al-Azdi encouraging attacks on a Shiite group that it considered part of an Iranian advance on the country, according to SITE.
The jihadi groups, which created mayhem in Egypt in the early part of the last decade, were largely crushed by Mr. Mubarak’s government, and do not enjoy popular support. They face structural challenges in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative but nonviolent organization, forms the best-known political opposition.
Though many Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin-Laden’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, began in the Muslim Brotherhood, the two movements have often contrary positions, and the Brotherhood on Tuesday announced its support of Mohamed ElBaradei, a liberal Muslim, to lead an opposition umbrella group in negotiations on a new government to replace Mr. Mubarak’s — a position that is antithetical to Al Qaeda, because it exalts human authority rather than divine.
On Hanein, a Qaeda Web site, a poster using the name Citizen of the Village, called jihadis to join with the Muslim Brotherhood because both supported Islamic revolution, whatever their differences.
“You have printed the exact truth,” another replied. “We have to sacrifice for our religion and not let titles hinder us.”
From their weakened position, some jihadis struggled to figure out their role in the protests in Cairo.
In a post on the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum, translated by SITE, an anonymous writer noted many jihadis’ objections to the demonstrators’ “mistakes and distance from religion.”
But he added, “it is nevertheless our duty not to ignore the benefits that may come about,” including an empty throne. “Jihadists may then leap on that throne.”
Yet, the writer also acknowledged that within the jihadi movement many felt that replacing Mr. Mubarak with a secular, democratic leader might mean simply exchanging one tyrant with ties to the United States with another. “So we wait and do not care for those revolutionaries against injustice, and we continue our jihadi path and the support of our jihadi brothers.” Ultimately, “separating the jihadi movement from the popular Muslim movement is the end of this movement,” he wrote.
The ambivalence and rhetorical scrambling reflect the unexpected speed of the protest movement, said Brian Fisher, a counterterrorism research fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, who monitors Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups.
“‘Like everyone else, they’re trying to catch up with a social movement they didn’t understand was there, and didn’t know the size of,” Mr. Fisher said. “So they’re being opportunistic about how they want to take advantage of events. They’re telling their own story into the events, even though that might not fit.”
While many were trying to ride the popular rebellion, he said, their message was that this was not the way to get real reform, that “the only real reform is an Islamic government led by jihadi groups, and everyone else is working for the U.S.”
But in the long run, Mr. Fisher said, the rebellion was “a direct repudiation of Al Qaeda’s core argument, which is that the only way to create change in Arab countries is through unmitigated violence.”
Still, many seized on the disruption as an opportunity to strengthen their positions, citing the terrorist groups in Iraq who gained traction after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
As-ansar.com, a Qaeda Web site, urged jihadis not to spend their energy protesting, but to exploit the deteriorating security situation to seize military weapons and to gather the names and addresses of spies and government officials for future assassinations, “as the mujahedeen did in Iraq.”
The writer urged loyalists to free all Muslim prisoners and destroy any documents that might be used against them, because “if anyone takes over after Mubarak, he will take a similar program against detainees and mujahedeen.” He also called on them to attack a Coptic church that Islamists claim is detaining two women for trying to convert to Islam.
In October, extremists identifying themselves as members of the Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq killed more than 50 people in a Baghdad church, citing revenge against the Coptic church. This attack was followed by a deadly New Year’s Day bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, that killed at least 21.
Another post on As-ansar urged, “Take ammunition because you are heading to a new stage in this country’s history, and do not let this opportunity go.”
As the grim rhetoric mounted on jihadi sites, jokes multiplied across the Internet and cellphone screens. One was in question and answer format:
Q: What happens if the protesters in Egypt win?
A: They advance to the finals against Tunisia.
Another popular joke featured a conversation between President Obama and Mr. Mubarak. “I suggest you write a farewell note to the Egyptian people,” Mr. Obama says. “Why,” Mr. Mubarak asks. “Where are they going?”
This article, , first appeared in The New York Times.