1994
With powerful bases in northern and southern Yemen, the Islamists are likely to become the major political force in Yemeni politics. This has prompted fear by Sa’udia and some Gulf states. The Islah party is known to have contacts with Usama Ben-Laden, the Sa’udi millionaire Islamist, now living in exile in Sudan.
Since achieving military victory, the Islamists are now poised to incorporate their agenda in the makeup of the post-war Yemen. The spiritual leader of the AlIslah party (Islamist), Shaikh Abdul-Majid Zindani. is also a member of the Yemeni Presidential Council.
2002: Mr. Zindani also is a friend and mentor to another Bucailleism devotee of Yemeni descent: Osama bin Laden. The world’s most wanted man has regularly sought Mr. Zindani’s guidance on whether planned terrorist actions are in accord with Islam, says Yossef Bodansky, biographer of Mr. bin Laden and staff director of a U.S. congressional task force on terrorism. “Zindani is one of the people closest to bin Laden,” says Mr. Bodansky, who attributes the book’s findings to interviews with various intelligence agencies, current and former terrorists and others.
Mr. Zindani, who stepped down as secretary general of the Commission on Scientific Signs in 1995, is now a leading figure in a Yemeni opposition party that advocates an Islamic state.
2004: The Treasury Department today announced that Shaykh Abd-al-Majid AL-ZINDANI, a loyalist to Usama bin Laden and supporter of al-Qaeda, has been designated by the United States as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under the authority of Executive Order 13224 and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. His name will be submitted to the UN Security Council’s 1267 Committee’s consolidated list because of his support to bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
“With this action, the international community’s drumbeat against terrorist financiers continues to grow louder and the financial noose around al-Qaeda continues to grow tighter,” said Juan Zarate, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime.
The U.S. has credible evidence that AL-ZINDANI, a Yemeni national, supports designated terrorists and terrorist organizations.
AL-ZINDANI has a long history of working with bin Laden, notably serving as one of his spiritual leaders. In this leadership capacity, he has been able to influence and support many terrorist causes, including actively recruiting for al-Qaeda training camps. Most recently, he played a key role in the purchase of weapons on behalf of al-Qaeda and other terrorists.
AL-ZINDANI also served as a contact for Ansar al-Islam (Al), a Kurdish-based terrorist organization linked to al-Qaeda, which is included in the UN 1267 sanctions Committee list.
AL-ZINDANI is the founder and leader of the Al Iman University in Sanaa, Yemen, which has over 5,000 enrollees. Al Iman students are suspected of being responsible, and were arrested, for recent terrorist attacks, including the assassination of three American missionaries and the assassination of the number two leader for the Yemeni Socialist party, Jarallah Omar. Notably, John Walker Lindh was also a student at Al Iman University before he joined the Taliban.
2005: remains a prominent business man and political leader in Yemen
Update: Kohlman: In the aftermath of the Soviet-Afghan jihad, Zindani encouraged refugee Arab-Afghan fighters loyal to al Qaeda to resettle and continue their training in the mountainous regions of Yemen. There he started his own religious university, the very same institution where future American Taliban John Walker Lindh was to study before traveling on to Pakistan. Moreover, in 1994, according to a Jordanian criminal indictment, Shaykh az-Zindani gave $10,000 on behalf of Osama bin Laden to help finance a radical Islamic terrorist cell in Jordan that committed several fatal bombings.