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These Times History Took a Turn for the Batty

Khalid Elhassan November 3, 2019 34 min

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

20. A Fatal Error

On October 6^th, 1981, Egyptian president Sadat, surrounded by high-ranking officials and dignitaries, took his place at a reviewing stand to watch the annual military parade. Things started well, and as TV cameras broadcast the event live, an overflight of jets zoomed overhead, while army trucks towing artillery paraded by. One of them contained a lieutenant Khalid Islambouli, who had arrived that morning with some substitute soldiers for ones whom he claimed had fallen ill.

Islambouli was a secret member of Islamic Jihad, radicals whose ranks included Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s future second in command. Islambouli and his men had live ammunition for their weapons, and when their truck passed by Sadat, he disembarked and approached the reviewing stand. Sadat thought it was part of the parade and saluted Islambouli, who responded by lobbing three grenades at the president. Only one grenade exploded, but as it went off, Islambouli’s accomplices rushed to the reviewing 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.