Road to jihad blocked

last updated 8 January 2015

Cairo

The Egyptian government has turned back hundreds of would-be suicide bombers who were trying to leave the country to become “martyrs” in Iraq. Spurred by television images of dead Iraqi civilians and by inflammatory weekly sermons, as many as a few thousand Egyptians have resolved to go fight the Americans. But the government has placed a mountain of paperwork in the way, requiring aspiring warriors to get visas and other official documents from both Iraqi and Egyptian authorities. Most are sent home without crossing the Egyptian border. “I was ready to become a martyr,” Mohamed Gallel told The Washington Post. “I resigned from my job. I said goodbye to my wife and children thinking I would die. Now I am back. It’s pathetic.”