And this was accompanied by another article, about Anwar al-Awlaki, entitled “Detroit bomber’s mentor continues to influence British mosques and universities” – which would seem a bit unlikely if you accept the Yemeni government’s claim that he was killed in a recent air strike.

The same article that Pitt cites also contains a quote from Yemen’s deputy prime minister for defence and security affairs, Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi, in this passage:

It had been thought the extremist cleric had been killed in a Christmas Eve air strike on the house, in the southeastern Yemen province of Shabwa, but Mr al-Alimi said [al-Awlaki] is believed to be still alive.

Pitt was too busy trying to score cheap “Islamophobia” points to read the facts.

But more importantly, even if al-Awlaki were dead, there are still copious amounts of his jihadi sermons, both printed and on DVD and YouTube that can still be used as material for the radicalisation of would-be jihadis. Al-Awlaki was, by his own admission, influenced by Seyyid Qutb long after the author of “Milestones” had gone to claim his 72 houris in paradise. And in any case, making a martyr of al-Awlaki would improve his jihadi-value amongst the Islamists far beyond what it already is now.

Here is a video of Muhammed Hamid at one of his jihad training camps:

In the United States, pro al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki has recently attracted the attention of mainstream media and counter terrorism commentators. His involvement with Fort Hood attacker Nidal Hassan has sparked a public interest in a man whose role in disseminating al-Qaeda ideology has been overlooked for far too long.

Nowhere is this complacency more acute than in the United Kingdom, where a number of organisations have openly promoted and supported Awlaki for years with impunity. As set out in a briefing for the Centre for Social Cohesion recently, the most active Awlaki promoters in the UK are a group called Cage Prisoners (CP), for whom Awlaki acts essentially as an emir (religious leader).

Since 2003, CP has campaigned on behalf of convicted terrorists, presenting almost any Muslim in prison as a victim of the supposed war on Islam waged by the West. As well as Awlaki, CP support other jihadists like Mohammed Hamid, who calls himself ‘Osama bin London’ and was convicted in 2008 for providing terrorist training and soliciting to murder. They crave legitimacy for their extremeist message and have so far successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of a number of mainstream organisations such as Amnesty International, and leading UK law firms such as Freshfields, who have both sponsored and endorsed CP’s work.

The organization is headed by former Guantanamo inmate Moazzam Begg, released by President Bush in January 2005, despite protests from the Pentagon and a number of his senior national security advisors that he still represented a threat. The Defence Department spokesman at the time, Bryan Whitman, said of Mr. Begg that “He has strong, long-term ties to terrorism — as a sympathizer, as a recruiter, as a financier and as a combatant.” Mr. Whitman also told the New York Times in 2006 that Mr. Begg was “a sympathizer, a recruiter and a financier” for terrorists. It has been suggested that Mr. Begg was in fact the unwitting beneficiary of a political deal between President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which, as a reward for his unflinching support for the liberation of Iraq, Blair was allowed to be seen as the liberator of Guantanamo’s British detainees.

Read the article in full.

And voicing over this Jihad video, is the “imam” himself:

Islamic Awakening user AbuSulaiman has recently posted this on the forum:

new Fatwa from Sh. Anwar

From: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Date Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 5:32 PM

subject: Fwd: Fwd: Imam Anwar updte!!

Dear brother XXXX,I wanted to clarify my recent comments on brother Nidal Hasan’s shooting at Fort Hood which i am unable to do on my site until the brothers restore it, may Allah reward them.

If a Muslim is in a non-Muslim army and is part of the military apparatus which is waging war against Muslims, it is not permissible for him to take part at all. Helping the kuffar against the Muslims is riddah without doubt. Allah said concerning the one who supports the mushrikeen:

“And if any amongst you takes them as awliya then surely, he is one of them (al-Maida 5:51)

If a Muslim is serving in the US army I want to emphasize the necessity of leaving the army of the disbelievers and finding work elsewhere, because his presence in the army implies helping them, strengthening them and increasing the numbers of their fighters. However, if his work in the army allows him to pass on their secrets to the Muslims or help the Muslims in some other way that is a separate issue and completely permissible.

It seems pretty obvious that the end of this email (if genuine) has probably been cut off, but there is probably little point speculating about what content was deemed too sensitive to be shared. All that can be said is that, with Awlaki back on the internet, he’ll be back to his old radicalising tricks quicker than you can say “No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny.”

****

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.

Aulaqi said Hasan viewed him as a confidant. “It was clear from his e-mails that Nidal trusted me. Nidal told me: ‘I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else,’ ” he told Shaea.

The cleric said Hasan informed him that he had become a devout Muslim around the time Aulaqi was preaching at Dar al-Hijrah, in 2001 and 2002. “Anwar said, ‘Maybe Nidal was affected by one of my lectures,’” said Shaea.

Now, Osama Saeed, Islamic Forum Europe and others may be on the defensive but Awlaki certainly isn’t. Speaking to an intermediary for the Washington Post, he affirmed his support for Nidal’s murderous rampage:

Explaining why he wrote on his Web site that Hasan was a “hero,” According to Shaea, Aulaqi said: “I blessed the act because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were not normal soldiers, but those who were trained and prepared to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.” [...]

Aulaqi said Hasan’s alleged shooting spree was allowed under Islam because it was a form of jihad. “There are some people in the United States who said this shooting has nothing to do with Islam, that it was not permissible under Islam,” he said, according to Shaea. “But I would say it is permissible. . . . America was the one who first brought the battle to Muslim countries.”

The cleric also denounced what he described as contradictory behavior by Muslims who condemned Hasan’s actions and “let him down.” According to Shaea, he said: “They say American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan should be killed, so how can they say the American soldier should not be killed at the moment they are going to Iraq and Afghanistan?”

And, although the email relationship between Awlaki and Nidal seems to have been made up of a dozen or so emails from Nidal and just two or three from Awlaki, there is a suggestion that Awlaki may have been tailoring the contents of his blog to try to influence Nidal.

On Dec. 23, 2008, days after he said Hasan first e-mailed him, Aulaqi also posted online words encouraging attacks on U.S. soldiers, writing: “The bullets of the fighters of Afghanistan and Iraq are a reflection of the feelings of the Muslims towards America,” according to the NEFA Foundation, a private South Carolina group that monitors extremist Web sites.

Whatever the true extent of the relationship between Awlaki and Nidal, the fact that Nidal first adopted extremist ideas back in 2001 whilst under Awlaki’s influence shows us that people who claim that Awlaki was a moderate in the years between being a “spiritual advisor” to the 9/11 hijackers and him reprising that role with Nidal are horribly ill-informed, mad or bad. Or all three. Awlaki may have got more extreme in that period, but Nidal still thought to go to him in the months before shooting to death 13 soldiers.

****

On his blog, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Glasgow Central, Osama Saeed, seems to have taken issue with a pamphlet I wrote last week, which cites his 2006 support for pro al-Qaeda preacher Anwar al-Awlaki. Firstly, this should be put into some kind of perspective: if a PPC who defined himself as a Christian wrote in support of a promoter of the Ku Klux Klan who had extensive links with white supremacist terrorists, it would rightly prompt national outrage. Mr. Saeed will be subject to the same standards as any other potential MP, and he had better get used to it.

Mr. Saeed begins his defence by displaying a striking level of either dishonesty or plain ignorance, though it is unclear which of the two. He claims that “Al-Awlaki’s opinions have swung dramatically since I blogged about him following his incarceration in Yemen back in 2006. Before that he was middle of the road and had a significant following.” Of course, we were well prepared for this predictable response, which has been reiterated by at least two others: the Islamic Forum of Europe, and Inayat Bunglawala (‘friends’ tell him that Awlaki changed after 2003). The claim is demonstrably untrue. There is in fact enough material to write an academic paper on Awlaki’s pre-2006 extremism, but for the purposes of this blog here is a little taster:

Answering questions on Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s IslamOnline website just days after 9/11 Awlaki was very receptive to the idea that Mossad carried out the attacks:

Q: What do you think about the possibility of involvement by Israeli Mossad?

A: Add to that the fact that there has been an uprising in Palestine that was becoming very popular while the popularity of the Israeli response was plummeting. Israel was going through a serious PR crisis. Israel has even hired U.S. public relations firms to try to clean up its reputation and Ariel Sharon’s damaged image.

Also there were lawsuits filed against the war criminal Ariel Sharon in Belgium. That was a serious blow to Israel to have its highest official in such a position.

Now doesn’t the timing of the attacks raise a question mark???

Although it is clear that Awlaki hasn’t quite made his mind up, as later on he also suggests that the FBI set the whole thing up:

The evidence coming out is perplexing. ..It appears that these people were victims rather than hijackers. It seems that the FBI went into the roster of the airplanes and whoever has a Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default…It doesn’t make sense at all. There is something peculiar happening??? [sic]

This interview was also spiced up with support for Hamas suicide attacks against civilians:

Islam does not teach people to kill innocents, that and the act of committing suicide are forbidden in the religion. There is no Muslim who advocates killing American civilians. We haven’t heard that before. If you are talking about Palestinians fighting in Israel, these are freedom fighters fighting an illegal occupation.

In 2003, at the East London Mosque Awlaki gave a lecture called ‘Stop Police Terror’, where he told the audience that Muslims should never report on or turn over their fellow Muslims, under any circumstances:

A Muslim is a brother of a Muslim, he does not oppress him, he does not betray him and he does not hand him over…You don’t hand over a Muslim to the enemies…

In 2002, he made a similar speech, this time in Virginia where he presents counter-terrorism raids as an effort to ‘put out the light of Allah’. Again, speaking on the subject of anti-terror operations he tells his audience that:

[...] if you conceal the private sins of your Muslim brother, Allah will conceal yours on the day of judgement

In the lecture, he also claims that Jamil al-Amin, a man who had been convicted that year for the murder of US Sheriff’s deputy, was innocent and that the jury that convicted him was illegitimate because the US is against Islam.

These are two clear examples after 9/11 (but BEFORE 2006) where Awlaki has essentially told his audience not to inform authorities of any suspicious activities involving their fellow Muslims.

Not only had Awlaki made numerous extreme pronouncements before 2006, but he also had a long list of terrorist affiliations:

According to the Washington Post:

Documents filed…in federal court in Alexandria assert that a year after 9/11, Aulaqi returned briefly to Northern Virginia, where he visited a radical Islamic cleric and asked him about recruiting young Muslims for “violent jihad.” That cleric, Ali al-Timimi, is now serving a life sentence for inciting followers to fight with the Taliban against Americans.

The 9/11 Commission Report details the extensive links between Awlaki and two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hani Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi as well as his connections with the Holy Land Foundation – a charity which was recently found to be channeling funds to Hamas.

The 2003 joint inquiry into 9/11 by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also found further connections between Awlaki and the two 9/11 hijackers, including evidence of closed door meetings between them in 2000. A phone number for Awlaki’s mosque was also found in the German apartment of Hamburg cell member Ramzi bin al-Shibh. The inquiry also found connections between Awlaki and a close associate of Omar Abdul-Rahman, the so-called ‘blind Sheikh’ who was convicted for his part in the 1993 World Trade Centre attacks.

All of this information suggests one of two things: either Saeed had failed to do his research properly when he praised Awlaki in 2006, or he was aware of all of this and still thought Awlaki was a man who should be promoted in the UK. Either way, it doesn’t look too good.

In his blog, Mr. Saeed confidently points out that although I criticise him for referring to Awlaki in the respectful term of ‘Imam’, my co blogger Shiraz Maher recently referred to him as ‘Sheikh’. Although he fails to point out one crucial difference: his blog was in praise of Awlaki, whereas Shiraz Maher makes it quite clear that Awlaki is an odious and dangerous character.

Mr. Saeed also has the audacity to call me an ‘extreme right winger’ with ‘odious politics’ – this coming from a man who has also written in praise of clerical fascist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, referring to a “a rightwing smear campaign against such eminent scholars as Sheikh al-Qaradawi – a man who has worked hard to reconcile Islam with modern democracy.” Here are Qaradawi’s views on the Holocaust:

Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place.

This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.

That is the language of an extreme right winger. Now this has been brought to his attention, will Mr. Saeed also renounce his support for yet another extremist Islamist he has lavished praise on? Incidentally, why did it take a phone call from the Times to coax a denunciation of Awlaki from Saeed? By his own admission he was aware of the vitriolic contents of Awlaki’s blog, and should not have needed a public prodding to clarify his position.

Rather than putting up his hands and acting with a bit of humility, Mr. Saeed has instead decided to respond with insults and lame, baseless excuses – perhaps he would make a good MP after all.

****

The head of the Civil Service Islamic Society, Azad Ali, has today sought to clarify his long-standing support for Anwar Awlaki, the pro-jihadi preacher who apparently inspired, and possibly orchestrated, the recent Fort Hood shootings in the US.

The Times has quoted Ali as saying of Awlaki’s views: “I reject them and disassociate myself from them completely”. The Islamic Forum Europe’s website additionally reports that Ali additionally said that:

My article talking about Mr Awlaki was specifically referring to his lectures on Companions of the Prophet and other similar lectures. I am not aware of his comments regarding Major Nidal Hasan other than the text you sent below. If these comments are indeed Mr Awlaki’s then I reject them and disassociate myself from them completely.

One could argue that Azad Ali’s latest statements have not been entirely true – as they given the impression that he only ever supported Awlaki’s earlier talks.

Five months prior to Azad Ali’s notorious November 2008 blog entries which described Awlaki as “one of my favourite speakers” and which empathised with “his frustration at the constant denial of legitimate Islamic principles” such as violent jihad, Azad Ali made other controversial comments on the blog of his ‘Easy Talk’ radio programme which have so far not been reported.

These were made by Azad Ali specifically in response to an Awlaki lecture given in May 2008 which was entitled ‘The battle of the hearts and minds’. This lecture contained a fine cross-section of Awlaki’s more repugnant beliefs. Although the original link on the Easy Talk forum is now dead, the talk is also available on Youtube.

At one point, for instance, Awlaki attacked Cheryl Bernard, a Rand Corporation analyst, for being Jewish:

In this report, titled ‘Civil, democratic Islam’, and it’s by Cheryl Bernard – she’s a Jew, married to a murtad [apostate] – it can’t get any worse – her husband is Zalmay Khalilzad, the murtad if he ever was a Muslim who held some very high posts, as you know, in the US administration.
[00:45, part 2]

Soon afterwards, Awlaki described democracy as “not Islamic”:

Democracy isn’t Islamic. Democracy is a system and Islam has brought us a completely different system. And if you, in reality, believe in the system of the Islamic state and Shurah [lit. consultation], then say Shurah. Call it what it is. Don’t call it democracy.
[03.50, part 2]

Awlaki also rails against the Rand definitions of extremism which seek to categorise as ‘extremists’ those who reject religious freedom and equal rights:

And then the questionnaire carries on. “Does it believe that members of religious minorities should be entitled to the same rights as Muslims? Does it believe that a member of a religious minority could hold high political office in a Muslim-majority country?” And we answer, “no” to that question They cannot hold high office.

Awlaki then quotes verses from the Quran and says this ayah does not allow us to take al-yehud [Jews] and an-nasara [Christians] as bitana, advisors, or to put them in high office.
[02:50, part 3]

He then continues his rant, saying that Muslims should reject all pre-Islamic civilisations (he specifically cites the Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamian civilisations and the Ancient Greeks and Romans):

We should not have any pride in our pre-Islamic history, it is all jahiliyah [state of ignorance of Islam], and it shouldn’t even be called a civilisation because it’s not: it is the path to jahanam [hell]. It is zulumat, darkness upon darkness,
[07:45, part 3]

Inevitably Awlaki gets more and more stirred up as his talking continues, saying that he cannot understand why jihadists in Iraq and elsewhere are described as cowards:

And the American heroic soldiers, fighting from the comfort of their armoured Bradleys and Strykers, but nevertheless boiling inside layers of bullet-proof gear in the boiling heat of the Iraqi summer are courageous while the Iraqi mujahideen armed with nothing but the light weapons of guerrilla warfare are cowards. And what I really fail to understand is how can the martyr, the shaheed, who willingly and happily hands over his soul to Allah, who walks towards  his fate with pleasure and faces death with a smile – what I fail to understand is how can you call such a person a coward? But that is what they have been called and that is what the parents in the Muslim world have been repeating – that these people are cowards.
[05:50, part 4]

He later refers to Al-Qaeda’s ‘Islamic State of Iraq’ as a “monumental event” which is struggling against “the immense conspiracy [that is] against the rise of any Islamic state”.
[03:00 onwards, part 6]

He then says:

[W]hether it succeeds or not, it represents a move of the idea from the theoretical realm to the real world, the idea of establishing the Islamic rule and establishing Khilafah on earth now is not any more talk, it is action … [Al-Qaeda] possess a project of an Islamic state followed by the return to this system of Khilafah. Brothers and sisters we are inching forward to the final stage of the hadith of al-rasool [Mohammed] … ‘finally it will be Khilafah, on the path of prophethood’.
[04:40 onwards, part 6]

So what does Azad Ali, head of the Civil Service Islamic Society, have to say about Awlaki’s anti-Semitism, his support for the Iraqi ‘mujahideen’, his support for al-Qaeda’s vision of an expansionist Caliphate and his advocacy of violent, intolerant Islamism as outlined in this talk?

In response to Awlaki’s above lecture, ‘The battle of the hearts and minds’, Azad wrote:

Mashallah good presentation. Much of it is known very extensively but he has a way of presenting things that makes it clear! Some of it I hope people don’t take out of context and the generality that they are meant in specifically the last 5 minutes.

None of Awlaki’s above quotes were taken from the last five minutes of Awlaki’s talk. There is also no obvious way that any of these quotes (for example, “she’s a Jew, married to a murtad – it can’t get any worse”, “democracy is not Islamic”) can conceivably be justified by their context. How on earth can any sane person regard this as a ‘good presentation’?

Gus O’Donnell, the head of the Civil Service and a prominent defender of Azad Ali, should immediately sack Azad Ali from his job at the Treasury and from his position as head of the Civil Service Islamic Society. Individuals who support pro-al-Qaeda anti-Semites like Anwar Awlaki should have no place in the British civil service.

NB: Since my last post about the Easy Talk blog, the website’s administrators have sought to hide the website’s embarrassing contents. Fortunately, this webpage is still available here. And the Spittoon has saved screenshots anyway.

website coming back online

Assaalmu’alaykum all

The website will be back to normal with a few days time.

If it does come back online this would be an unfortunate development. However, with Awlaki on the run in Yemen, it is most likely that this message was posted by an anonymous supporter, not the man himself. Anyway now his Facebook page is also down we at the Spittoon thought we’d highlight a few people who probably thought this would protect them from being busted as Awlaki supporters on Facebook.

Yvonne Ridley is also a fan of herself. Narcissist.

The Islamic Society for the University of London Union also likes Anwar, apparently.

No surprise that Moazzam Begg of Cageprisoners, an organisation which is rather keen on Awlaki, should be a fan

And Mozzam's colleague at Cageprisoners, Maryam Hassan. She also likes Sayyid Qutb, the philosopher of militant Islamism.

No doubt they will try to tell us that they had no idea Awlaki was a vicious jihadist preacher. This doesn’t really wash.  He may have originally developed a reputation for his biographies of the Sahabah, but he’s not been propagating moderate ideas for nigh-on seven years.

****

Today we focus on Cage Prisoners which likes presents itself as a human rights organisation campaigning on behalf of Muslim detainees. The group appears to support any Muslim arrested in the UK on terrorism charges, all inmates at Guantanamo Bay, and any British citizen arrested abroad on terrorism charges.

So it’s a little strange that they campaigned so vigorously for Awlaki when he was arrested in Yemen in 2006. After all, Awlaki has no links to Britain and was not being held in Guantanamo Bay. To my mind that suggests he was singled out because he is a theoretician with whom some of those at Cage Prisoners sympathise. Indeed, one article on the Cage Prisoners website describes Awlaki as ‘inspirational’.

In August, Cage Prisoners advertised that Awlaki would be submitting a ‘video message’ (from Yemen) to help their Ramadhan Fundraising Dinner. Other speakers included former Guantanamo Bay detainees: Moazzam Begg, Binyam Mohammed, and Sami el-Haj. Another former inmate, Moussa Zemmouri, was invited to lead prayers.

It was not the first time Awlaki has been advertised at an event by Cage Prisoners. He was also invited to speak at the 2008 Ramadhan fundraiser – again, by video link. Also participating were Moazzam Begg, Moussa Zemmouri, and Yvonne Ridley.

Promoting the event on their website, Cage Prisoners say:

The dinner will have the largest gathering of ex-Guantanamo detainees from all around Europe to date.

You will be able to meet those that Allah has tested and you will see that they are flesh and bone just like you or I.

[...]

If a speaker can inspire you, how about a room of people whom Allah has tested, and have remained steadfast?

You will be listening to the likes of Moazzam Begg and Imam Anwar Al Awlaki, in his first live public address since his release from prison, less than a year ago. You will have the opportunity to take away with you the letters that they wrote in Guantanamo, previously unseen sketches conceived in the cages of Camp Delta, bid for books and DVDs signed by these inspirational brothers.

If seeing these brothers and meeting them does not fill your heart with ambition and jealousy at the favour Allah has bestowed upon them with the rank He has given them – I wonder what else will?

Ambition? Jealousy? At the ‘favour Allah has bestowed upon them’? Maybe I’m just getting old and boring these days, but call me crazy – spending a few years in Guantanamo Bay or a Yemeni prison is not something I would regard as a ‘favour’ bestowed on me by God.

It begs the question, just what ‘ambition’ are Cage Prisoners promoting exactly?

As if the chance of dining with a bunch of Guantanamo rejects wasn’t enough, Cage Prisoners had more to offer.

Our rows [for prayers] will (Insha’Allah) be filled with ex-detainees united again for Taraweeh [special Ramadhan prayers], an event that last occurred thousands of miles away in Guantanamo, a different existence to our own – except this time YOU get to join their taraweeh, and join your feet to theirs.

Don’t all rush at once.

The relationship between Cage Prisoners and Awlaki goes back a number of years. For example, when Awlaki was arrested in 2006, Cage Prisoners organised an ‘urgent appeal’ on his behalf urging their supporters to campaign for his release.

Similarly, Asim Qureshi, a senior researcher for Cage Prisoners, was previously involved with another project known as ‘Stop Political Terror’ where he used the email address: asim.q@stoppoliticalterror.com. On its website, Stop Political Terror listed Awlaki as a ’supporter’.

When Stop Political Terror ceased campaigning in November 2006, it subsequently directed all its supporters to Cage Prisoners, and another group called ‘Campaign against Criminalising Communities’.

The support Cage Prisoners lends Awlaki is hardly surprising when you consider the activities and associations of two of its leading members – Moazzam Begg and Asim Qureshi.

Begg hardly needs much of an introduction having been one of the most high profile British detainees held in Guantanamo Bay. However, his arrest in 2001 was not the first time he popped up on the radar of law enforcement officials.

Begg had been arrested the previous year, in March 2000, when a bookshop he ran called Maktabah al Ansaar was raided by West Midlands Police during an intelligence-led operation by the Security Service.

An Algerian man, known only as ‘D’ also worked there. In December 2001, the Home Secretary sought to deport ‘D’ because of his suspected involvement in international terrorism. ‘D’ appealed to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) and what transpired in the final SIAC judgement is extremely relevant here. The judgement found that ‘D’ is

an active supporter of the GIA (an Algerian terrorist group)

It really is a quite damning verdict. The judgement doesn’t mince its words.

We regard D as a practised and accomplished liar. We do not believe his excuses, his claims to ignorance, his attempts to distance himself from other terrorist suspects, or his assertions that he has nothing to do with the GIA or other terrorist organisations, networks or activities.

The judgement goes on to hold that ‘D’ is

involved with other extremists, in particular Djamel Beghal, Abu Qatada and members of the latter’s group, and Begg, with whom he worked at the Maktabah Al-Ansar Book Shop in Birmingham.

About the raid on the bookstore, the court found

It is right to say that the Secretary of State was in error in suggesting that weapons were found at the book shop when D was working there: they were not – they were found at Begg’s house.

So there you have it.

A British court has branded Moazzam Begg an ‘extremist’ who associates with ‘practised and accomplished liars’. Begg is now one of the directors of Cage Prisoners.

Another senior member of Cage Prisoners is Asim Qureshi (he describes himself as a ’senior researcher’) who has been involved with the group almost since its inception. In 2006 he gave this outrageous speech outside the American embassy in London.

So when we see the examples of our brothers and sisters, fighting in Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, then we know where the example lies. When we see Hezbollah defeating the armies of Israel, we know what the solution is, and where the victory lies. We know that it is incumbent upon all of us to support the jihad of our brothers and sisters in these countries when they are facing the oppression of the West. Allahu Akbar!

Significantly, Qureshi refers to Afghanistan and Iraq – theatres of conflict where British troops are currently serving – while saying it is ‘incumbent upon all of us to support the jihad of our brothers and sisters in these countries when they are facing the oppression of the West’.

Small wonder then, that Cage Prisoners is among the most vocal British supporters of Anwar al-Awalki, the al-Qaeda linked cleric who described the massacre at Fort Hood last week as ‘heroic’.

Yet more evidence of the links between them? Probably not, but it’s always worth noting the dubious personal morality of the ostentatiously pious.

The list is extensive. Not least because Al-Awlaki, who is based in Yemen, is regarded as the pre-eminent English language demagogue and theoretician of violent jihadism. We intend to publish more material on the UK-based followers of Anwar Al-Awlaki over the next few weeks.

So stay tuned…

1. Azad Ali: Civil Servant, the head of the Civil Service Islamic Society and a leading activist with the Islamic Forum Europe and the Muslim Security Forum.
2. Cage Prisoners:  Islamist outfit masquerading as a human rights organisation. Has a long and extensive relationship with Anwar al-Awlaki.
3. Abu Usamah ath-Thahabi, Imam at Green Lane Masjid, Birmingham, reputedly advised in one of his lectures for people to listen to the lectures of Anwar al-Awlaki. Previously known for his comments (reported in C4’s “Undercover Mosque”) praising Islamist terrorists and disparaging non-Muslims. Claimed then comments were taken “out of context”. [Thank you Abu Faris - from the comments]
4. Osama Saeed: Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Glasgow Central.

Well, now Awlaki has responded to the shooting with an entry entitled Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing (pdf) on his blog. I reproduce it below in the hope that people in various capacities in government (central and local), the media and more will become familiar with this man and never again will he be able to sully a venue in Britain.

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.

Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.

The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.

The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.

Allah(swt) says: Give tidings to the hypocrites that there is for them a painful punishment –
Those who take disbelievers as allies instead of the believers. Do they seek with them honor [through power]? But indeed, honor belongs to Allah entirely. (al-Nisa 136-137)

The inconsistency of being a Muslim today and living in America and the West in general reveals the wisdom behind the opinions that call for migration from the West. It is becoming more and more difficult to hold on to Islam in an environment that is becoming more hostile towards Muslims.

May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen

Despite being a US citizen himself, he thinks Major Hasan is a “hero” and his slaughter of soldiers relaxing “a heroic act”. People must have no illusions about who Awlaki is.

Whilst Sunny, Harry’s Place and many more speculate about what lay behind Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s murderous rampage in Fort Hood, the Huffington Post carries a piece written by Kamran Pasha, who has a Muslim soldier friend, Richard, who knew Hasan. It contains a fascinating and troubling detail.

As Richard got to know Hasan better over the next several months, he found the major to be a pious man who was at the mosque daily. But Richard also began to garner a sense of Hasan’s political views that troubled him. A black-and-white outlook on Islam and life that had no room for nuance or debate. Hasan had apparently attended a mosque led by an imam named Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni scholar whose political views Richard disagrees with.

Awlaki is a controversial figure among Muslims, and has been accused by the Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 of serving as a “spiritual advisor” to two of the September 11 hijackers. While Richard is careful to say that he respects much of Awlaki’s historical scholarship, he rejects his political ideology, which posits a black-and-white, us versus them, view of America’s relationship with the Islamic world. [...]

Richard does not know how heavily Hasan was influenced by fundamentalist thinkers like Awlaki. But the major’s views were definitely troubling. Richard described an incident where Hasan made some anti-Semitic comments about Jews as a nation being “cursed by God” in Islam. Richard responded that the Qur’an does not condemn any group of people collectively, and that no one is born “cursed” by their ancestry.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran-pasha/a-muslim-soldiers-view-fr_b_348973.html&cp

That would be the same mosque that some of the 9/11 hijackers attended and the same Awlaki whose support of an al-Qaeda style ideology has long been documented. Wikipedia steps in:

9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi came into contact with al Awlaki at the Rabat mosque in San Diego, though The 9/11 Commission Report notes that “We do not know how or when Hazmi and Midhar first met” him.

According to The 9/11 Commission Report, the two “may even have met or at least talked to him the same day they first moved to San Diego.” Al Midhar and al Hazmi “reportedly respected al Awlaki as a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him.” The Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 labels al Awlaki “their spiritual advisor” and asserts that there were reports of “closed-door meetings” involving the three.

In January 2001, al Awlaki moved to Virginia and became the imam at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA, a mosque with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In April 2001, al Hamzi and fellow hijacker Hani Hanjour showed up at Dar al Hijrah. The 9/11 Commission Report asserts that al Hazmi’s “appearance may not have been coincidental. We have unable to learn enough about al Awlaki’s relationship with Hazmi and Midhar to reach a conclusion.”

The Toronto Star recently had this to say about Awlaki:

Anwar al Awlaki preached in perfect Arabic and flawless English about the need to fight in the name of religion, because the “world is united in fighting Islam.”

The time for jihad is now, no matter your training, he told members of the group that would later become known as the Toronto 18. Six months following that “training camp,” those youths were rounded up in Canada’s largest post-9/11 terrorism investigation and charged with plotting to blow up downtown Toronto and military targets.

Zakaria Amara, the leader of that group, entered a surprise guilty plea earlier this month. A date for his sentencing is to be set on Tuesday.

Awlaki’s role in allegedly inciting “homegrown terrorism” was just a footnote in the volumes of evidence submitted in the Toronto case.

But in recent months, as Awlaki’s name has popped up in terrorism cases in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, intelligence services are closely monitoring the U.S.-born cleric.

“Awlaki is an exceptionally smart person,” says FBI consultant and terrorism researcher Evan Kohlmann, who has studied the 38-year-old for years. “He has the strongest statements of any English-language site.”

And this, from a New York Times article about Somalis from America being recruited to fight for al-Qaeda allies al-Shabab:

Mr. Hassan’s interest in the Islamist movement dovetailed with his own religious transformation, friends said. In the fall of 2007 he began downloading sermons onto his iPod and soon was attending the Abubakar mosque.

By then, Mr. Hassan had become upset by the reports of rapes in Somalia and set out to learn more about the insurgency, one friend recalled. He began talking of joining the movement as early as February 2008, around the same time that a friend from the mosque — Mr. Maruf, the former gang member — left for Somalia.

“I wanted to go, so I got to know him,” Mr. Hassan said in a recent telephone conversation from Somalia with a Minneapolis friend.

That May, he was incensed by a United States military air strike that killed Aden Hashi Ayro, a leader of the Shabaab, along with at least 10 civilians. “How dare they?” Mr. Hassan demanded one afternoon at the student center. “Who is the terrorist?”

Mr. Hassan and another university student searched the Internet for jihadist videos and chat rooms, the friend said. They listened to “Constants on the Path to Jihad,” lectures by the Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is suspected of inciting Muslims in the West to violence.

Whether Major Hasan’s actions were motivated by insanity or a jihadist ideology is a debate which will no doubt play out for a while, but his connection to Anwar al-Awlaki could well be a crucial detail casting light on this terrible affair.

-

UPDATE:

The Telegraph has picked up on this story.

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen”.

On his website, Awlaki publishes a leaflet called 44 Ways of Supporting Jihad. Awlaki tells his readers that, in the current day and age, it is compulsory for them to get arms training then to go and fight jihad. And, before any apologists pop up to say I’m misrepresenting the concept of jihad in Islam, no, he is not talking about jihad  al-nafs. If it entails arms training then what Awlaki is talking about is religiously justified warfare.

This is a point Awlaki makes clear when he tells readers of his website to fight against government armies in the Muslim world.

They stand against those who want to establish Islam through Jihad and they even stand in front of those who seek to reach government through peaceful means as what happened in Algeria in the past.

In other words, there can be no Islam with the presence of these armies. The Islamic rule states that whatever is needed to establish an obligation becomes an obligation. Establishing Islamic sharia is an obligation, and fighting in the cause of Allah is an obligation, and if that cannot be achieved except by fighting against these armies then that becomes an obligation.

[...]

These armies are the number one enemy of the ummah. They are the worst of creation. Blessed are those who fight against them and blessed are those shuhada who are killed by them.

It’s not just Muslim majority countries that Awlaki wants Muslims to fight, it’s also America.

In this recording Awlaki suggests that America is at war with Islam and therefore all Muslims should fight against America. What Awlaki says here is no different to al-Qaeda’s ideology.

Which probably explains why Awlaki is such a fan of the al-Qaeda linked Somali Islamists al-Shabab connected to recent terrorism arrests in Australia. In December 2008, Awlaki sent salutations to al-Shabab of Somalia.

We are following your recent news and it fills our hearts with immense joy. We would like to congratulate you for your victories and achievements.

Al-Shabab not only have succeeded in expanding the areas that fall under their rule but they have succeeded in implementing the sharia and giving us a living example of how we as Muslims should proceed to change our situation. The ballot has failed us but the bullet has not.

al-Shabab who are with limited resources in an impoverished country are a manifestation of what tawakul on Allah means. We see in them the meaning of “And whoever has taqwa, Allah will make a way out for him. And will provide for him from where he does not expect.” [al-Talaaq 2-3]

Heart warming stuff. And it gets sweeter, al-Shabab sent him a response.

Reply to the Greeting and Advice of Sheikh Anwar

O beloved Sheikh Anwar,

We ask Allah to reward you for your encouragement and words of advice. Your words have reached us and, by the will of Allah, we will benefit from your recommendations [...]

Sheikh, we look to you as one of the very few scholars who stand firm upon the truth and defend the honor of the Mujahideen

It seems that Awlaki is so keen on al-Shabab that he has even been acting as their recruitment sergeant. In America, young Somali Americans began disappearing off to Somalia to fight with al-Shabab – it turned out that they had been watching lectures recorded by Awlaki and distributed online.

He even says that Muslims must not side with non-Muslims against perpetrators of terrorist attacks.

The ones who are behind bombings in the West that kill civilians. This is an issue that cannot go beyond the boundaries of fiqh. Whether the author agrees with such operations or doesn’t this issue can never be an issue of aqeedah. So even if he believes that the perpetrators of such acts are wrong and have no basis in sharia, the most he can say about them is that they have followed an invalid ijtihad. But under no circumstances is he allowed to side with the disbelievers against these Muslims. If a Muslim kills each and every civilian disbeliever on the face of the earth he is still a Muslim and we cannot side with the disbelievers against him.

Which makes it all the more disturbing when you discover that Cageprisoners has invited Awlaki to deliver a video message at Kensington Town Hall in West London on 30th August.

At first I thought this was just a horrendous mistake, an oversight which would swiftly be corrected. But then I read this report in Counter Terrorism News.

CTN spoke to the Community Safety Officer at Kensington and Chelsea Council who confirmed that the Home Office’s Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT) and the Metropolitan Police had given their approval for this event to go ahead without any changes to the advertised speakers.

How can Kensington and Chelsea Council reconcile providing a platform for a preacher of violent extremism with its own Crime and Community Safety Plan‘s (pdf) commitment of “working to minimise opportunities for radicalisation to flourish”.  It is astounding that the local council, Metropolitan police and the Home Office all fail to appreciate that when Kensington Town Hall (a council run venue) hosts a man whose personal ideology differs little from al-Qaeda’s then this provides an appallingly convenient opportunity for radicalisation of the very worst kind.

Will they only realise the danger of such speakers when, like their American peers, groups of young British Somalis – with Awlaki’s pro-Shabab rhetoric ringing in their ears – start signing up to fight in Somalia?

UPDATE:

And this is what Awlaki thinks about killing innocent Jewish women and children.

My opinion which I have stated in past recordings and is still my opinion now is that non-combatant women and children cannot be targeted. However if the type of war forced on us to fight is one in which non-combatants would end up being killed in order to reach to the fighting force then it is allowed in this case. Examples of this are the striking of al Taif by the catapult during the time of Rasulullah(saaws). Parallels of this today are the two methods that our brothers in Palestine have adopted: martyrdom operations and the firing of rockets into the occupied territories. Both of these methods inevitably do kill women and children. The current case of Gaza adds another dimension and that is that the Jews are targeting the entire community in Gaza by siege and indiscriminate bombing and this is why I am inclined to the view of Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen in this particular situation.

In the current situation of Palestine I must say that I agree with the methods adopted by the mujahideen and I agree with them when they state that they would not stop targeting civilians until the Israeli’s do the same.

For those who asked that I reconsider my view on this, I promise I will review it again and would be happy if you could send me textual references pertinent to the discussion.