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History’s Out of the Ordinary Radicals

Khalid Elhassan June 29, 2020 33 min

Lebensborn - Schutzstaffel — Kidnapping of Polish children for the Lebensborn association. Wikimedia

19. Killing a President on Live TV

Egyptian Islamic Jihad extremists during the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Rare Historical Photos

Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli was a secret member of Egypt’s Islamic Jihad. The group’s ranks included Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s future second in command and successor as head of Al Qaeda. Islambouli and his men had live ammunition for their weapons. As TV cameras broadcast the parade live, Islambouli’s truck passed by president Anwar Sadat’s reviewing stand. The lieutenant and his men disembarked and approached the review stand.

Sadat thought it was part of the parade, and saluted Islambouli, who responded by quickly lobbing three grenades at the president. Only one grenade exploded, but as it went off, Islambouli’s accomplices rushed the review stand and opened fire, killing Sadat and several others nearby.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.