Writing from an online perch in Istanbul, he calls on Egyptians to start off-hour attacks against KFC restaurants, banks, mobile phone shops and other corporate outposts. He urges assaults on the military’s commercial interests instead of its security checkpoints.
Nonviolent protests are worse than “futile,” he says, just an opportunity “to get arrested or shot in an exercise in crowd control training for the police.”
This Internet provocateur is an American convert to Islam, Shahid King Bolsen, a college dropout who speaks only rudimentary Arabic and has barely set foot in Egypt. He has nevertheless emerged as the unlikely apostle for a distinctive blend of anti-globalization sloganeering and Islamist politics that is fueling a new wave of violence against businesses across the country.
Although the attacks have mainly hit empty banks, stores and restaurants, they have killed two Cairenes so far. On Thursday alone, six bombs set off around greater Cairo injured at least nine others, including four police officers.
A 43-year-old native of Boulder, Co., Mr. Bolsen is the latest in a series of Westerners, including the American citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Kahn of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to turn up as propagandists for various forms of Islamist violence.
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The cause of death was an overdose of chloroform, which Mr. Bolsen told the court he kept in the house to fight insomnia but had used to try to sedate Mr. Steiner. After the killing Mr. Bolsen stuffed the body in a suitcase, disposed of it by a desert highway, and was arrested as he tried to fly to Oman, he acknowledged.
Mr. Bolsen was initially convicted of murder and sentenced to death by an Emirati court. But after two appeals of lower court convictions, his crime was reduced to manslaughter and he was allowed to pay “compensation” to the family of the victim to win his release in 2013.
These days, he focuses much of his attention on urging sabotage against participants in an investment conference scheduled for next month, a centerpiece of President Sisi’s plans for the economy. As the conference approaches, Mr. Bolsen wrote in a recent Facebook post, “it will become more important for rebels to inflict real financial losses on the multinationals and foreign investors.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 28, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Online, American Helps Fuel Attacks in Egypt. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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