In first new disclosures on the storming of Israel's Cairo embassy which started Friday night, Sept. 9, DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources reveal that the mob was led by the terrorist Jama'a al-Islamiya, the Egyptian founding branch of Al Qaeda, and two other radical Egyptian Islamist groups.
The February 1993 car bombing of the World Trade Center of New York, which was the forerunner of the Sept. 11, 2001 atrocities, was an early Jama'a operation under the al Qaeda label.

Closely linked to Osama bin Laden's successor, Ayman al Zawahri, Jama'a al-Islamiya is now running for election in post-Mubarak Egypt.
Its mentor is the "blind sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for masterminding the first World Trade Center bombing. Jama'a adherents stormed the Israeli embassy Friday night along with activists of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Students April 6 Movement.
DEBKAfile's intelligence sources also reveal that Egyptian security forces delayed for eight hours before tackling the mob smashing into the embassy building and rampaging inside – even after US Ambassador Anne Patterson interceded on behalf of the six Israel security officers barricaded in the embassy's security room as the rabble battered on its steel door.