http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=2782
<http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=2782&cid=3&sid=74>
&cid=3&sid=74
How Britain Encouraged Radicalism And Terrorism, Part 2
Adrian Morgan - 5/11/2007
On February 16, 1996, Al Muhajiroun was formed by Omar Bakri Mohammed as an
offshoot from the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which he had founded in
1986 with a Syrian, Farid Kassim. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international
Islamist group formed in Jerusalem in 1953 by Muslim jurist Taqiuddin
al-Nabhani. It aims to establish a Caliphate - a pan-national Islamist
superstate. Syrian-born Bakri had gone to Saudi Arabia in 1983, where he set
up a group also called Al Muhajiroun. This was a cover for Hizb ut-Tahrir,
which is banned in Saudi Arabia. Bakri was expelled in 1985. He arrived in
Britain, where he became an "asylum seeker".
Bakri was based in Tottenham in North London. He lived in a house there,
provided by welfare, where he and his wife would raise seven children. Al
Muhajiroun had an office in the Lee Valley Techno Park in Tottenham, which
also housed the "British Court of Sharia", an entirely unofficial body. The
Lee Valley office was allegedly used to recruit people to join Hamas,
Hizbollah and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
In 2004, six months before he officially disbanded Al Muhajiroun, Bakri gave
an interview to a Portugese magazine. He claimed that in his time in
Britain, he had been arrested 16 times, but released without charge on all
occasions. He warned then that a terror attack against Britain was
"inevitable", adding: "We don't make a distinction between civilians and
non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and
unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no
sanctity."
The following year, on 7 July, 2005, Bakri's "prediction" came true and 52
people were slaughtered on London Transport. The leader of the 7/7 suicide
attack cell - Mohammed Sidique Khan - was connected with Al Muhajiroun
members. These individuals, sentenced to life imprisonment on April 30 this
year in the Operation Crevice trial, also plotted terror attacks against
Britain. Mohammed Sidique Khan and his fellow suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer
had met Omar Khyam (pictured), senior member of the Operation Crevice
convicts, on four occasions in early 2004.
One of these meetings, from February 21, 2004, took place in Omar Khyam's
Suzuki Vitara Jeep. Sidique Khan asked Omar Khyam: "Are you really a
terrorist, eh?" Khyam answered: "They're working with us." Sidique Khan
urged: "You're serious, you are basically." Omar Khyam replied: "No, I'm not
a terrorist but they are working through us." Sidique Khan said: "Who are?
There's no one higher than you." Later in the conversation Khyam spoke of
travel to terror training camps in Pakistan and warned Sidique Khan: "The
only thing, one thing I will advise you, yeah, is total obedience to whoever
your emir is... up there you can get your head cut off."
In 2003, Omar Khyam (who used the code-name "Ausman") and Mohammed Sidique
Khan (code-named "Ibrahim") had both attended a terrorist training camp in
Malakand in Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border. Here they had trained in
the use of explosives, handling Kalashnikovs, rocket propelled grenades and
how to extract the deadly toxin ricin from castor oil beans.
In 1999, according to Richard Watson on BBC's Newsnight Omar Bakri Mohammed
wanted to expand Al Muhajiroun's operations. He sent an envoy to New York,
called Sajil Shahid (pictured). It was in New York that Shahid, a
Dutch/Pakistani, met Mohammed Junaid Babar, whose testimony would later help
to convict the Operation Crevice members.
In New York in the mid-1990s, the Queens Islamic Center, based at the Masjid
al-Fatima on 37th Avenue, Woodside, had been taken over by radicals from
Hizb ut-Tahrir. The US Hizb ut-Tahrir branch had been set up in Queens in
the 1980s by Iyad Hilal. He recently lived in Orange County, California,
before being forced into hiding.
Aqeel Khan, founder and secretary of the Queens Islamic Center, said of
these Hizb radicals: "They had their own programs, which were not the
directions of the mosque... There were five times (a day) prayer, but then
they had their own meetings here and we - the general public - were not
invited." The radicals were officially thrown out after $400,000 had gone
missing from mosque funds, but they continued to use the mosque. It is
believed to be here that Junaid Babar met Sajil Shahid.
>From June 2 to 4, 2000, there was a meeting at the Masjid al-Fatima mosque,
with lectures given by Sajil Shahid (pictured). The convention was also
addressed by American Al-Muhajiroun member Syed "Fahad" Hashmi, who was
arrested at London's Heathrow airport on June 6 last year on suspicion of
providing cash and military equipment for al-Qaeda terrorists.
In 1999 Shahid's brother Adil Shahid had gone to Pakistan where he set up an
Al Muhajiroun office in Lahore, Pakistan. He was joined here by his brother
Sajil who met "friends" of Osama bin Laden. These included Khalid Khawaja,
who is now in prison. Khawaja, who was sacked from the ISI (Pakistan's
intelligence agency) in the mid 1980s, boasted of meeting bin Laden hundreds
of times, and said: "Mr Sajil Shahid was promoting jihad, so it is not only
Mr Sajil Shahid, any true Muslim has to promote jihad. If he doesn't, he
should not call himself a Muslim; he is a hypocrite."
Al Muhajiroun used the Lahore base in its drives to recruit British Muslims
to perform armed jihad. On Christmas Day, 2000, a British-born Muslim,
Mohammed Bilal, became the first UK suicide bomber. He blew himself up in
Srinagar, Indian Kashmir, killing six soldiers and three civilians.
According to Richard Watson, Bakri claimed that Bilal was one of his
recruits. At that time Bakri Mohammed was stating publicly that people who
went to fight in Chechnya, Afghanistan or Kashmir were obeying their
"religious obligations".
Bakri called terror training "National Service" and said: "It is part of a
young Muslim's religious obligations to go for three months' military
training." With the Terrorism Act 2000 not coming into force until February
19, 2001, Bakri was still acting legally by urging Muslims to receive terror
training abroad.
On 9/11, Junaid Babar's mother was on the ninth floor of the World Trade
Center, but she had escaped the carnage. Last year Babar told the Old Bailey
jury: "I loved my mother but if she was meant to die in the attack then she
was meant to die in the attack." A week after 9/11, Junaid Babar left his
home in Queens, NYC, and arrived in Pakistan. He stayed at the Lahore office
of Al Muhajiroun for a month, and then rented an apartment in Muslim Town,
Lahore.
In an interview filmed in November 2001 by Jon Gilbert, Babar said: "My
loyalty will, has always been, is and forever will be, with the Muslims...
Yes, I'm willing to kill the American soldiers if they enter into
Afghanistan with their ground troops. I'm willing to kill the Americans."
This video, screened on CNN and elsewhere, first drew FBI's attention to
Babar.
In March 2004, shortly after he finally returned to the US, Babar was
arrested on a Queens, New York, street. He was on his way to a taxi-driving
course. Taken to Room 538 of the Embassy Suites Hotel in Manhattan, over a
period of four days FBI agents gave him a choice - face 70 years in jail or
agree to turn supergrass. He chose the latter option.
On June 2, 2004, Babar pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to
provide material support, and providing that support, to terrorists. He told
Federal Judge Victor Marrero that he had supplied night-vision goggles,
sleeping bags and other items, including money, to a senior al Qaeda
operative who was based in South Waziristan, Pakistan. Babar said that he
himself had made the deliveries in January and February, 2004, and had
deputized someone else to do this in the summer of 2003. Last March, Babar
was flown to Britain to give evidence at the Crevice trial. Only now are
certain details of his testimony available.
In November 2001, Junaid Babar was in regular contact with Hassan Butt, who
claimed to have sent two hundred jihadists to fight coalition troops. In
December 2001, Babar bought a property in Eden Heights on Jail Road in the
city of Lahore. In January 2002, Babar's associate Hassan Butt claimed that
Muslims returning to Britain from jihad would launch terror attacks. For
this "faux pas" Bakri officially removed Butt from his position as Al
Muhajiroun spokesman, though he remained in Pakistan assisting jihad
recruitment. Downing Street and the Home Office dismissed Butt's claims,
even though they have now been proved true.
>From April 2002 until December 2002, Junaid Babar worked for the Pakistan
Software Export Board (PSEB). This state-owned company was managed by Sohail
Shahid, the brother of Sajil and Adil Shahid. Sohail became PSEB's managing
director in March 2002, and within two months had claimed he had brought
PSEB $150 million worth of new contracts. In May 2002 these claims were
exposed as exaggerations. By July 2002, allegations of corruption worth
"millions of rupees" on the PSEB board were being raised.
Sohail Shahid was fired from his position as managing director of PSEB in
September 2002. This was for misuse of power. The Auditor General's office
and the Ministry of Science & Technology accused him of violation of rules,
negligence and violation of propriety. Through PSEB servers, jihadist
websites were operated, and government guest houses were used by visiting
jihadists, claims Richard Watson.
Though Sohail Shahid has denied assisting Al Muhajiroun, it is claimed by
Richard Watson that through this company, Junaid Babar was able to forge
government passes. These allowed him and his jihadist associates to gain
access to the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) in North-West
Frontier Province (NWFP). This is where Taliban and Al Qaeda members were
based. While he was employed by PSEB, Junaid Babar was posted to Peshawar,
capital city of NWFP. From here, it was a short distance to the FATA border
agencies, which included South Waziristan where his al Qaeda contact was
based.
In 2003, Junaid Babar and Sajil Shahid had founded the training camp in
Malakand in NWFP Malakand district was where Winston Churchill had been
posted in the late 1890s. In the summer of 2003, members of the Operation
Crevice cell had gone to Pakistan. Four of these individuals met Junaid
Babar. They were Omar Khyam ("Ausman"), Waheed Mahmood ("Abdul Waheed"),
Anthony Garcia ("Abdul Rahman") and Salahuddin Amin ("Khalid").
Babar had met most of these before, while on a fundraising trip to Britain
in 2002. He testified that he first encountered Omar Khyam at a mosque in
Crawley, West Sussex. He had gone with Khyam to sermons given by the radical
preachers Abu Hamza and Abdullah el-Faisal, who claimed that it was
"permitted" and even desirable to kill non-Muslims.
Babar stated that in Crawley, Omar Khyam boasted of having direct links to
senior Al Qaeda operative called al-Hadi, who appears to be Abd al-Hadi
al-Iraqi who was recently transferred to Guantanamo.
Both Khyam and Salahuddin Amin were in contact with an Arab man named Abu
Munthir who had formerly lived in Luton. Amin channelled funds from Britain
to Pakistan. They were also in contact with a man named Mohammed Quayyum
Khan, or "Q" (pictured), who had also lived in Luton. Q is said to have
ordered the 7/7 bomber SIdique Khan to attend the Malakand terror camp. Q is
thought to have strong al Qaeda links. He had been followed by MI5 since
March 2003, and the Crevice group was first identified as a result of these
inquiries. Q's home was searched in Luton, but he was never charged. It has
been said at the recent trial that he is the real leader of the Crevice
team.
Salahuddin Amin, aged 32, had left his home in Luton, Bedfordshire, shortly
after 9/11 to live near the borderlands of Pakistan, where he ferried funds
to jihadists. Amin claimed in court that the funds were for Afghan refugees.
In 2003, he had greeted Omar Khyam and on a separate occasion Mohammed
Sidique Khan when they flew in from Britain.
In the summer of 2003 Babar had gone with the four to the training camp in
Malakand. There they were shown explosives techniques, and tried out their
own bombs from ammonium nitrate. Of two tests, one succeeded. After this
they returned to Lahore. Babar had stolen five computers from his employers,
PSEB. He gave three of these to the British Muslims. They rented rooms in
Soofi House (pictured), 13 Ilyas Street in Lahore.
Another lodger at Soofi House that summer had been the 7/7 suicide bomber,
Mohammed Sidique Khan. The raucous behavior of the British Crevice group led
to neighbors calling police. The Pakistan intelligence agencies found out
that the men had gone to Malakand for training, and they informed MI5.
According to Hassan Butt, Babar had attended a fund-raising event for the
Malakand training camp in Hendon, north London, in 2002. Babar's testimony
confirmed that he attended such an event. Hassan Butt, who was stabbed and
beaten in April this year for denouncing Muslim violence on CNN, said that
Mohammed Quayyum Khan or "Q" had been in attendance. Known as the "Bashful
Dwarf" by MI5 agents, Q has gone into hiding.
When Hassan Butt returned to Britain in December 2002, he was detained by
police and questioned, but never charged.
Sajil Shahid, who had run Al Muhajiroun's Pakistan operations, was
imprisoned with his brothers Adil and Sohail by the Pakistani authorities
for three months in October 2004. Upon his release in January 2005, Sajil
Shahid was expelled from Pakistan and came to Britain. In July 2006, while
London mourned the victims of 7/7 on the first anniversary of the attacks,
the Islamist Mohammed Sawalha held an exhibition celebrating Islam. This
Islam Expo, held at Alexandra Palace in north London. Here Sajil Shahid had
a stall, promoting Islamic computer games.
In Britain, the authorities seemed to be in denial of the jihadist "conveyor
belt" in Pakistan, despite open statements from Al Muhajiroun members such
as Abdul Raheem Saleem, aka "Abu Yahya". In September 2001 he said that he
had attended training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had met Taliban
members. No action was taken. Abu Yahya took part in the infamous February
3, 2006 demonstration in Sloane Square, where placards called for the
beheading of "those who insult Islam", and was found guilty of "inciting
racial hatred" on February 1, 2007.
Omar Bakri Mohammed had been portrayed in the media as a clown, partly as a
result of a documentary by Jon Ronson for Channel 4 TV, aired on April 8,
1997, entitled "Tottenham Ayatollah". Bakri also contributed to this
buffoonish image. While handing out leaflets condemning homosexuality in
1996 he told passers-by in Holborn: "Be careful from homosexuality! It is
not good for your tummy!" When this tactic did not attract people to take
his pamphlets, he turned them upside down and cried out: "Help the orphans!
Help the orphans!" - a strategy which drew more interest.
>From 2000 onwards, the message of Al Muhajiroun's malevolent intent toward
Britain and its troops was self-evident. Members of the group were
frequently engaged in incidents of public disorder, and their anti-Semitism
was obvious. In early 2000 Al Muhajiroun displayed posters in British
universities saying "The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight the
Jews and the Muslims kill the Jews." The phrase comes from a Hadith by Sahih
Muslim. In May 2002 London Al Muhajiroun member Iftikhar Ali was convicted
of having distributed "threatening, abusive or insulting" material in
October, 2000, with the intention of stirring up racial hatred. His leaflets
had stated: "The Jewish people must die."
The British authorities seemed more interested in the activities of Abu
Hamza, the radical preacher at Finsbury Park Mosque. Hamza was a friend of
Omar Bakri Mohammed. His sermons had been heard by Zacarias Moussaoui, the
"20th man" in the 9/11 conspiracy, and also shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
British intelligence agents had an informer placed at the mosque, who would
later claim that they failed to take his reports about Hamza seriously.
Al Muhajiroun members acted as if there were an "agreement" or truce between
themselves and the UK. As long as the authorities did not interfere with
them, there would be no terror attacks on British soil. They called this
agreement a "Covenant of Security". As long as Al Muhajiroun's terrorist
operations happened offshore, MI5 and the Blair government seemed not to
care about the group's activities. In 2005, immediately after 7/7, former Al
Muhajiroun members announced that the "Covenant of Security" was over.
Adrian Morgan is a British writer and artist who regularly contributes to
<http://www.islam-watch.org/> Islam Watch,
<file:///C:/Program%20Files/Common%20Files/Microsoft%20Shared/Stationery/www
.familysecuritymatters.org> Family Security Matters,
<file:///C:/Program%20Files/Common%20Files/Microsoft%20Shared/Stationery/www
.westernresistance.com> Western Resistance,
<file:///C:/Program%20Files/Common%20Files/Microsoft%20Shared/Stationery/www
.speroforum.com> Spero News and <http://www.faithfreedom.org/>
Faithfreedom.org. He has previously contributed to various publications,
including the Guardian and New Scientist and is a former Fellow of the Royal
Anthropological Society. His Global Politician articles deal with issues
relating to Islam and terrorism.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--------------------------
Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
--------------------------
Brooks Isoldi, editor
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.intellnet.org
Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has
not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of
The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT
YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods,
techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other
intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use
this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,'
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
