Thousands of mourners gathered in a small Egyptian town on Wednesday for the funeral of the Muslim cleric known as "the blind sheikh" who was convicted of conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.

Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was also convicted of planning a broader "war of urban terrorism" in the United States, died on Saturday in a North Carolina prison aged 78.

Movements across the Islamist spectrum from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaida attended, including several leaders from Egypt's Islamic Group, which renounced violence in 1997.