Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 1, 1995 TAG: 9511010068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press|
DATELINE: JERUSALEM LENGTH: Medium
Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, 40, a British-educated professor variously based in the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Florida, was chosen over the weekend to head Islamic Jihad after its previous leader was gunned down in Malta.
A spokesman for the group said Shallah was unanimously elected.
Palestinian sources in Gaza said Shallah was one of the founders of Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed fundamentalist group that has tried to block the Israel-PLO peace process with suicide attacks against Israelis.
With a core of several hundred militant followers, Islamic Jihad is considered more uncompromising in its opposition to Israel than the larger Hamas militant group.
Reuven Paz, a lecturer on Islamic movements at Israel's Haifa University, said Shallah was more involved in the political and intellectual side of the group than with its military operations.
Shallah, who is believed to live in Lebanon, was at the airport in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday to meet the plane carrying the body of his slain predecessor, Dr. Fathi Shakaki.
Islamic Jihad blamed Israeli agents for Shakaki's death Thursday and has vowed revenge.
Shallah was born in 1955 in Gaza City's Shajaiya neighborhood, a center of Islamic fundamentalism. He studied economics and political science in Egypt, where he met Shakaki, and he later earned a degree in economics from the University of Durham in Britain.
In recent years, Shallah headed the World Islamic Studies Enterprise, formerly affiliated with the University of Southern Florida. The university cut its ties with the institute in June, when news reports linked it to Islamic terrorists.
by CNB