Mahmoud Es Sayed is arrested in Syria with other militants on weapons smuggling charges, according to Italian authorities. The Italians will learn this later based on wiretaps of Es Sayed, a close associate of al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. While in prison, Es Sayed is visited by Muftafa Tlass, the Syrian defense minister, and Es Sayed tells him that the weapons are meant to fight Jews. Tlass, a virulent anti-Semite who even claimed in a book that Jews kill non-Jews to use their blood to make pastries, arranges for the release of the whole group, and puts them in touch with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. [Vidino, 2006, pp. 222]
International Center for 9/11 Justice
Muftafa Tlass
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