He was sixty-seven years old in 1995, but his wavy hair was dyed a brilliant black, and the billboards bearing his visage in Cairo showed a man twenty years younger—changelessness being the most obvious feature of his rule. He had stood beside Anwar al-Sadat on the reviewing platform when the assassins struck, and upon assuming the presidency he declared a state of emergency that was still in effect fourteen years later. His early efforts at liberalizing the political process were answered by the victories of the Muslim Brothers and then by the terror campaign of the radical Islamists in the nineties. Mubarak showed himself to be as pitiless as the insurgents, but the violence had not yet reached its climax.In April, Egyptian intelligence learned that Zawahiri had chaired a meeting of al-Jihad in Khartoum that included leading members of the rival Islamic Group—a troublesome development. The reports said that the two organizations were working together to restart terror activities in Egypt, and that they were being aided by the Sudanese government, which was supplying them with arms and false papers.
