according to authors Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, based on the "testimony of those who knew him" and Mustafa's statements during his trial, "it is clear Shuqri Mustafa thought he was the Mahdi". According to journalist Robin Wright, the group reorganized and within a year of Mustafa's death membership was estimated "to be as high as 4000." Some former members of the group were later linked to the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. According to Paul Wilkinson, Shukri Mustafa's execution "ushered in the emergence of two wings within Al Takfir: one under the leadership of Abbud al-Zammut (considered one of the original founders) and one under the leadership of Ayman Al-Zawahiri", later second in command of al-Qaeda. Takfir wal-Hijra grew substantially through the 1990s as "Afghan Arabs" returned from Afghanistan to their homes in the Middle East and North Africa and spread their doctrines, establishing a "decentralised network of believers" that has been active "throughout Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan." During the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s, the al-Muwahhidun group, which has otherwise been referred to as Takfir wal-Hijra, was central in the formation and the ideology of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) which went on to declare Algerian society "takfir", commencing a campaign of massacring civilians. Hayder Mili of Jamestown Foundation states that Takfir wal-Hijra has been responsible for "at least five attacks" on worshippers at mosques in Sudan from 1994 to 2006, resulting "in scores of fatalities and hundreds of injuries". Some news reports in which the name Takfir wal-Hijra have been mentioned include the killing of 16 Muslim worshipers in Sudan in 1994, and the killing of 22 people and wounding of 31 others who were praying at a Sudanese mosque six years later. In 1995, the Sudanese branch of the group planned to assassinate al-Qaeda-leader Osama bin Laden while he was residing in Sudan because his views were considered to be too liberal. On 31 December 1999, in the Dinnieh district of Northern Lebanon "hundreds of Takfiris" led by Lebanese-American Bassam Kanj organised attacks killing civilians and clashing with the Lebanese Army, the biggest clashes since the civil war. The fighting lasted for a week before it was subdued. In 2005, Takfir wal‐Hijra took credit for the killings of Christian civilians in the same area in Lebanon. Lebanese-Canadian Kassem Daher who was arrested by Lebanese authorities in 2000 was