****

It is now clear US Army Major Nidal Hasan had a series of connections to the Islamist cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki . For those of us who have studied, with increasing concern, the extreme teachings of this cleric, this tragedy is the inevitable consequence of un-checked Islamist radicalisation. This situation has been made all the more distressing by the apparent lack of concern shown by the US Intelligence and Military authorities in taking Awlaki’s influence seriously.

Even before Major Nidal had fired a single bullet in Fort Hood, the US authorities knew about his increasingly vocal radicalisation and that he had attended the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virgina at the time Awlaki was its head Imam. Nidal had also been the subject of an FBI investigation after it was discovered that he made communication with Awlaki by email. There was certainly no lack of overt clues.

Inayat Bunglawala is right to say that most Islamic scholars, particularly in Britain, are opponents of the extremist fighting talk that is replete in Awlaki’s sermons. Even within political Islam, Awlaki’s teachings fall within the most extreme, Al Qaeda-aligned territory. Indeed, according to Charles E. Allen, the US Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis and Chief Intelligence Officer, Awlaki is the former spiritual leader to three of the 9/11 hijackers. He was also identified by the 9/11 Commission report as having provided advice to two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khaled Almihdar and Nawaf Alhazmi.

What should concern us most, however, is this. Awlaki has a huge internet following amongst Muslims, all over the world. His sermons, delivered in word perfect English and Arabic, are downloaded and shared by vast numbers of people in the Middle East and in the West. On his blog, which has now been taken down, his articles together with the stories of his scrapes with the FBI and his incarceration in Yemen, have earned him the status as the pre-eminent crossover Arabic-speaking theoretician of armed Jihad. 

Most disturbingly of all, Awlaki has been actively promoted by some of the United Kingdom’s most prominent Islamist organisations. Inayat Bunglawala’s description of Awlaki’s relationship with these organisations is an understatement of the seriousness of the problem. There are two points that are central to Bunglawala’s discussion of Awlaki’s connection in the UK. The first is that when Islamic organisations began inviting Awlaki to this country in the late 1990s, Awlaki was then still a mainstream, moderate imam with sensible views and showed “no hint of his later extremism”. The second, that Awlaki only became radicalised due to the US war against Iraq in 2003, and is therefore somehow the product of Western foreign policy. However, under greater scrutiny, neither of these claims stand up, even from the data available in the public domain on Awlaki.

A Washington Post report examined tax records from as early as 1998, which showed that Awlaki served as vice president of a charity (CSSW) founded by his then patron Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, a Yemeni politician who is named as an associate of Al-Qaeda. The CSSW has been described a “front organization to funnel money to terrorists”. The FBI also know that he was paid a visit in 2000 by an associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, known as the blind sheikh, who was convicted in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The report also states that in 1999, Awlaki was investigdated by the FBI “when it learnt that he may have been visited by a “procurement agent” for bin Laden”.

In late 2002, Awlaki made a trip back to the USA, where he visited Ali al-Timimi, who was the time was accused by US prosecutors of recruiting Muslims to fight against US troops in Afghanistan. Timimi was convicted in 2005 and is now serving a life sentence for inciting followers to fight with the Taliban against Americans.

Inayat Bunglawala refers to an interview of Awlaki in the National Geographic from 2001, in which Awlaki’s responses are portrayed as reasonable and moderate. But what the interview doesn’t tell us is that in reality Awlaki had already been investigated twice by the FBI for his connections with Al-Qaeda. He was on his best behaviour. When Awlaki conducted another interview with IslamOnline – the website founded by the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi – he suggested that Mossad were behind the 9/11 attacks.

Therefore, by the time Awlaki was first invited to the UK by British Islamic organisations, he was, even by the Islamist standards, no moderate scholar. His actions show that he was a well known activist with a highly confrontational message for the cause of violent Jihad, long before the second Gulf War.

But it is what happened from 2002 onwards that is more important in the UK context. Since that date, Awlaki has been invited to speak in person, or via video link-up, by a large number of private Muslim organisations, university Islamic societies and registered charities which have benefited from government funding. They have promoted him, in spite of or perhaps because of, Awlaki’s track record and his increasingly explicit message exhorting Muslims to support violent Jihad.

Timeline

In June 2003, the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), referred to as the official arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK, organised a series of meetings with Awalki as guest speaker. 

Later that year, at an event organised by the East London Mosque (ELM) in December 2003, Awlaki addressed Muslims on the subject of terrorism arrests in the UK and urged them to never report on or turn over their fellow Muslims, under any circumstances. Two months prior in October 2003, the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE), an organisation closely associated with the ELM, invited Awlaki to speak at its ‘expoislamia’ event. In January 2009, the same ELM hosted  another event, entitled ‘The End of Time’, with Awlaki this time as delivering a video message. In spite of the fact that Awlaki’s “presence” at the event was reported in the national press, ELM refused to condemn Awlaki’s ideology or even cancel the meeting.

As late as 2005 Inayat Bunglawala and Awlaki were both listed as co- supporter of an organisation called ‘Stop Political Terror’ (SPT) which aimed to protect the civil rights of Muslims charged with extremism. One of individuals that SPT campaigned for was Babar Ahmad, who ran Azzam Publications, a pro-jihad website which, according to his indictment was “used to recruit individuals to be mujahideen and to solicit and raise funds and assistance for jihad”.

Osama Saeed, who now is poised to represent the Scottish National Party (SNP) for Glasgow Central in Parliament, wrote in his blog in 2006:

“Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki was originally hounded in the US because two of the 9/11 bombers happened to pray at his mosque. Many of my Muslim readers will either know him personally or have heard his lectures. He preached nothing but peace, and I pray he will be able to do so again.”

Saeed continues to cling on to the falsehood that Awlaki was a moderate when he praised his message of “nothing but peace” three years ago. He also references the National Geographic interview as proof of Awlaki’s moderateness, the citation of which is fast becoming the favoured get-out route for Islamists who want to justify their support of Awlaki.

Azad Ali is a civil servant in HM Treasury. He is the President of the Civil Service Islamic Society and sits on the council of Liberty. In January 2009, the Mail on Sunday reported Mr Ali’s extreme Islamist views in entries he had written on the IFE’s blog, ‘Between the Lines’ on which he has gushed about his “love” for the “Sheikh”, and then went on to justify Awlaki’s view that American Muslims who voted in elections were people who had “humiliated themselves by voting for candidates who have no serious concern for their issues”.

One of the directors of the MAB, Anas Altikriti, is now with the Cordoba Foundation which sponsored an event this summer in the Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall called ‘Beyond Guantanamo’ that was to feature an online video address by Awlaki.

Cage Prisoners (CP) is a successor organisation to Stop Political Terror, which also campaigns for Muslims who have been detained or imprisoned. They are also the most active supporters of Awlaki in the UK today. The CP website contains an extensive and friendly interview between Awlaki and Moazzam Begg, one of its directors and a former Guantanamo detainee. In August 2009, CP were the organisers of an event in the Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall in which guests were promised the treat of a live video link-up with Awlaki, who the CP regard as an “Inspirational Imam”. In the weeks before the event, CP were informed by the local council that their event could only go ahead if they cancelled the video address by Awlaki. CP complied with this, although they issued a statement on their site which refused to acknowledge Awlaki’s extremist nature.

The notion that Awlaki was previously a moderate imam whose public and personal journey to the extremes of violent Islamism happened relatively recently and long after British organisations endorsed and supported him is a false one. There are a host of organisations and individuals who operate within the Islamist landscape in this country who have, at one point or another, praised or defended Awlaki. I have listed only some of the British organisations which will have been aware of Awlaki’s views. Many of their leaders will have pored over every word and inflection he made in his articles and sermons. They will have been supporters of Awlaki’s rhetoric because of his message of violent Jihad and not in spite of it.

The US authorities are not the only ones who have been slow in responding to their own intelligence on Awlaki. British institutions have been equally lethargic, sometimes even supportive, in responding to organisations and individuals who have embraced and endorsed the ideology of Awlaki in their campaigns, seminars, public meetings and broadcasts. Whereas people who have pointed out the dangerous potential of Awlaki have been allowed to be defamed as Muslim-haters or self-loathing Muslim hypocrites.

Although the leadership of the Awlaki-supporting organisations cannot have mistaken him for a moderate, the same does not necessarily hold true for their rank and file. Ordinary Muslims, turning up at events at which Awlaki was promoted, may well have taken on trust the assertion that he is a religious authority with prodigious qualifications and a sincere and important message. It is these ordinary members who have been imperilled, by being exposed to jihadi theology in its purest form. They have been betrayed by their leadership.

The supporters of these organisations need to think long and hard about how their leadership came to champion Awlaki. We must also give serious consideration to the question on whether the leadership of these organisations should be trusted in the future.

****

The Enemy (according to the BMI)

At the risk of sounding like Richard Littlejohn, sometimes you just can’t make it up. In response to the Guardian’s report on Saturday on how the government’s ‘Prevent’ counter-extremism programme is allegedly being used to spy on British Muslims, the British Muslim Initiative, a moribund Muslim Brotherhood front-group run by former Muslim Association of Britain spokesman Anas Al-Tikriti, briefly stirred into life in order to issue a single crazed press-release:

BMI president Muhammad Sawalha said, “This campaign of espionage is a hallmark of totalitarian societies. It is an unfortunate throw back to the Cold War years when spying was the order of the day.”

“We are deeply aggrieved that such measures should be adopted to target law-abiding citizens in a modern democracy”, he added.

The BMI recognizes in the government strategy a dark political undercurrent of hostility engineered by the Zionist, Islamophobe and Neo-Con alliance (ZINC).

…

The BMI calls on our government to scrap the discredited and wasteful Prevent programme and disassociate itself forthwith from the jaundiced advices of the anti-Muslim ZINC alliance.

I suppose I should really take issue with the irony of Muhammad Sawalha, a fugitive Hamas commander, characterising the UK as a “totalitarian society” or else draw Spittoon readers’ attention to the remarkable speed with which the BMI’s eagle-eyed activists detected the influence of “the Zionists” as being behind the Home Office’s domestic counter-extremism ‘Prevent’ policy.

Alternatively, I should perhaps observe that this underhand and grubby little press release, with its conspiratorial mutterings of “dark political undercurrents” which are (naturally) “engineered” by the “Zionists” and their co-conspirators, somewhat undermines Robert Lambert’s rosy depiction of Anas Al-Tikriti as “a well-known political activist” in Comment-Is-Free earlier today.

However, I am much more inclined to simply say: “Anti-Muslim ZINC alliance? The BMI should zinc before they zpeak!”

Kafa*/Enough Launch Meeting

Defend the Muslim community
Friday 26 June 6.30pm
Bishopsgate Institute, Bishopsgate, London EC1
(Opposite Liverpool St tube)

*Kafa is arabic for enough

Speakers include:

George Galloway MP, Daud Abdullah, Diane Abbott MP, Anas al Tikriti, Ismael Patel, Lindsey German

Stop attacks on the Muslim community

Muslims in Britain are facing attacks on many fronts. These include:

• The high-profile arrests under terror legislation of Muslims who are subsequently released without charge, creating a climate of fear and harassment;
• An increase in violent attacks on Muslims in the streets and on Muslim places of worship;
• The targetting of Muslims by the far-right British National Party;
• Aggressive policing of Muslims on demonstrations, apparently designed to deter them from participating in peaceful protests;
• The racist misrepresentation of Muslim views and practices in the mass media;
• The political harassment of Muslim leaders by government ministers.

These and other developments threaten to create a climate of hostility towards Muslims in Britain in contradiction to traditional tolerance and damaging to community cohesion.

We believe that all people should come together in support of Muslims in Britain, and not leave them to confront these challenges alone.

We call for a broad-based campaign to confront the growth of racist attitudes towards Muslims and rising governmental and state harassment of Muslim citizens.

Signed:

Daud Abdullah Muslim Council of Britain, Annas Al-Tikriti British Muslim Initiative, Amir Amirani filmmaker, Lord Ahmed, Mohammed Ali Islam Channel, Moazzam Begg ex-Guantanamo prisoner, Tony Benn, Lauren Booth journalist, Louise Christian human rights lawyer, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Professor Terry Eagleton, David Edgar playwright, George Galloway MP, Lindsey German Convenor StWC, Father Alan Green Chair of Tower Hamlets Inter-Faith Forum, Shamiul Joarder Friends of Al-Aqsa, A.L.Kennedy writer, Bruce Kent, Ken Loach filmaker, Lowkey rapper, Alice Mahon, Drew McConnell Babyshambles, John McClure Reverend and the Makers, Councillor Abjol Miah, Seumas Milne journalist, Andrew Murray Chair StWC, Peter Oborne journalist, Gareth Pierce human rights lawyer, Murad Qureshi AM GLA, Mohammed Sawalha BMI, Mark Serwotka General Secretary PCS, Phil Shinerhuman rights lawyer, Clare Short MP, Jonathan Steele journalist, Baroness Jenny Tonge, Walter Wolfgang, Councillor Salma Yaqoob

The goals of this campaign appear noble enough, but the same cannot be said of the planned speakers. They hardly need introducing, but these individuals’ unpleasantness cannot be reiterated enough.

First off, George Galloway – famed cat, scab and employee of the Iranian regime. There’s Daud Abdullah who managed to drag the MCB’s reputation even further into the mud by supporting Hamas and military action against foreign (including British) ships sent to Gaza and Anas al-Tikriti of the British Muslim Initiative. A leading light of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain, al-Tikriti thinks that Holocaust Memorial Day is all about serving Israeli interests. Not to forget Abdulrahman Jafar who is listed as speaking on the pdf flyer but not elsewhere. He is with Azad Ali‘s Muslim Safety Forum.

Then there’s Ismael Patel who set up Friends of al-Aqsa (which Habibi blogged about recently) and Lindsey German, Convenor of Start the War Coalition – famous for putting on dodgy plays and publishing the 9/11 troofing work of Lowkey. Which is without mentioning the list of signatories to the campaign – a smorgasbord of Islamists, their fellow travellers and dupes. There’s much more which could be written about each one in this motley crew so please feel free to contribute in the comments your favourites from among their many unpleasantries.

If it were just Galloway, Abdullah, al-Tikriti, Jafar, Patel and German speaking, there would be nothing that worthy of note here. It would be just another bad day in London. However, it is claimed that Diane Abbott MP is also speaking. I hope this is a mistake.

If it is not then this means that Abbott intends to speak alongside two of the organisers of Islam Expo (al-Tikriti and Patel). Hazel Blears had this to say about that particular event.

Take the Islam Expo at the weekend. I was clear that because of the views of some of the organisers, and because of the nature of some of the exhibitors, this was an event that no Minister should attend. Organisers like Anas Altikriti, who believes in boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day. Or speakers like Azzam Tamimi, who has sought to justify suicide bombing. Or exhibitors like the Government of Iran.

Not because the vast majority of Muslims at the event were not decent citizens; they were. But because the organisers were trying to influence the audience in certain directions. And by refusing to legitimise the event for these specific reasons, we would hope to isolate and expose the extremists and ensure they were not part of the event next year. Our policy is designed to change behaviour.

She will also share a platform with Daud Abdullah.

A letter leaked to The Independent on Sunday shows that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears, wrote to the Muslim Council of Britain, calling for Dr Daud Abdullah to resign.

She alleges he was one of 90 Muslim leaders from around the world who signed a public declaration of support for Hamas, the elected government of the Gaza strip in Israel, and military action against Israel.

A spokeswoman for the department said: “We are concerned that the statement calls for direct support for acts of violence in the Middle East and beyond. We are also aware that a senior member of the MCB may have been a signatory to this statement. If it is proven that the individual concerned had been a signatory, we would expect the MCB to ask him to resign and to confirm its opposition to acts of violent extremism.”

Standing up against anti-Muslim bigotry is always to be applauded, but why with these companions? Blears may no longer be running the show, but it is extraordinary that Diane Abbott, a Labour MP, may be prepared to speak on stage with no fewer than three people considered by her government, with good reason, personae non gratae.

If Abbott is really planning on speaking alongside these men then Labour’s Prevent strategy must be in even worse disarray than previously feared. That is not a reassuring thought. So, Diane. Please say it ain’t so. You’re not really going to speak at this event, right?