 Eidarous and Tharwat Salah Shehata traveled to Dagestan to plead for the release of the "merchants" who they argued had been unfairly arrested.The regional commander of al-Jihad in Baku, Azerbaijan, he traveled to London in 1996 to take over the leadership role in England from Adel Abdel Bary.There are suggestions that he initiated al-Jihad's presence in Azerbaijan, and that there was no activity in the country between August 1995 and May 1996.