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Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert: Another report of funds raised in Britain for the Somali jihadists. "Somali Islamists held UK meeting to raise funds," by Jeevan Vasagar for the Guardian:
Somalia's Islamist movement, whose leadership is accused by the US of sheltering some of al-Qaida's most wanted operatives, sent a delegation on a fundraising trip to Britain last year, the Guardian has learned. Led by an Islamist minister, the Union of Islamic Courts delegation received pledges of funding from members of Britain's Somali diaspora at a meeting at a north London school in November.
According to one community leader, the Somali delegation also met sympathisers at the Finsbury Park mosque, which became notorious as a recruiting ground for radical Islam under its former imam Abu Hamza.
Abdiwali Mohamud, a Somali community worker in Camden, said: "They were trying to influence people in a Muslim way, saying are you with us or with the unbelievers?"
Although they were not officially recognised by Britain, the Islamists also held talks with Foreign Office officials, who urged them to negotiate with Somalia's government.
The Foreign Office meeting underlines the strikingly different approaches taken by the US - which describes the Islamists as "extremists to the core" and targeted Somalia with an air strike this week - and Britain, which accepts that there were moderate elements within the UIC.
Around 500 people attended the Islamists' fundraising meeting at the Islington Arts and Media School, according to a British Somali who was in the audience. A delegation led by Omar Mohammed Mahamoud Aftooje, the Islamist minister responsible for reconstruction, appealed for financial help.
"They talked about the progress they made in Mogadishu, how they defeated the warlords," the audience member, who requested anonymity, told the Guardian. "More than 20 people donated £1,000 each, some people said £100, others £300, some of them gave cash on the spot, others gave bank details or agreed to transfer money. They said the money was for repairing roads in Mogadishu."
However, one of the UIC delegation also spoke of the need for military support, which prompted concern from the audience.
The audience member said: "He said: 'We are at war at the moment, people have died and we need military support.'
"Some people were angry, they said, are you asking for money to rebuild our country or money for fighting? Some were happy to support fighting but some were not."
But did anyone object to the "Talibanization" of their country?
The delegation also visited Birmingham and Manchester.
The Foreign Office confirmed yesterday that a UIC delegation had met British officials on November 20.
A spokeswoman said: "They asked for the meeting. HMG appreciated that at the time the UIC was a reality on the ground and in dialogue with the [Somali] government. It was reasonable to meet them."
The government was aware that the Islamists were trying to raise funds. "We were neither happy nor unhappy about that. The UIC is not a proscribed terrorist organisation."
Many among Britain's 43,000-strong Somali community admire the movement for restoring peace and the rule of law to the capital, Mogadishu, and southern Somalia, which has been fought over by rival factions since the collapse of central government 16 years ago. An Islamist supporter, Mohomoud Nur, a community worker with the London-based Somali Speakers Association, said: "Somali tribes are so fragmented the only thing that can unite them is Islam. People felt the only way they could find justice is through Islam."
The Home Office is still investigating Ethiopian claims that seven British passport holders were injured in Monday's US air strike on suspected jihadists in southern Somalia.
Mr Nur said he had phone contact with British Somali families who were stranded in Somalia and feared that their teenage sons might be accused of being jihadi fighters. "There are families that are hiding there now, who are afraid they may confiscate passports and accuse them, that they are foreign fighters."
Abdirahman Warsame, the Finsbury Park mosque's executive manager, denied claims that the Islamists had met supporters there, saying the only fundraising had been at the Islington school.
Posted by Marisol at January 12, 2007 9:56 PM
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C’mon people respond! Haven’t you noticed JW is letting us talk as long as we are semi coherent and semi non offensive? Show me what you got, the world is waiting.
Posted by: tgusa![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 12, 2007 10:10 PM
I don’t care if they are holding passports to heaven, turn em into a smoking pile. But let’s not risk one Infidel in that mission. Artillery or Aviation!
Posted by: tgusa at January 12, 2007 10:25 PM
Is everybody that I have been , well , no other word for it but mean, taking it personally? If so, that makes me sad, I try to say things that anger you and get you motivated. If you think I’m an a*****e that is a small price to pay for the free world. Anyway, take it as you read it.
Posted by: tgusa at January 12, 2007 10:47 PM
I'll repeat what I said in Jihadwatch.
Please JW's living in Britain: set up your own party.
Make it anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-homophobic and make it specifically opposed to Islam.
Posted by: Voltaire at January 12, 2007 11:01 PM
I tell you now in Britain or anywhere on the Globe, You are a Woman, you are a Homo, you are a Negro, you are a White you are an Indian or any other whatever. Do you have any idea the size of the army I could raise? Yes I am proceeding forward with my plan and any who stand in the way will be crushed. I don’t care who or what you are as long as you believe in the rights of man. White supremisists or Brown supremisists don’t matter to me, they can all confront me in the future. I have loyal friends of all colors so who exactly do they think will win that battle? before you answer that you better consult the history books, Im still here in spite of it all. Me and mine of course will win always have always will. We came this far and we ain’t stopping for nothing no how.
at January 12, 2007 11:22 PM
Voltaire - Good idea. But would it be permitted? Look what happened in Belgium.
tgusa - You can always come back from the right but you can never come back from islam.
And I thought this story was a joke.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=23978_Egyptian_Researcher_Blinded_by_Science&only
Can muslims really think that the world should adjust time standards towards a city that 4/5ths of the worlds people can't enter?
Get off the oil.
Stop benefits to all new arrivals including asylum seekers. Europe and US. That would slow immigration to a trickle. How in the world that was allowed to happen in the first place I just can't understand. A system paying out benefits to people who never paid into it and never will under the pretence of benefit to the system? Madness.
at January 12, 2007 11:30 PM
If the leaders of these countries had searched for an alternate fuel twenty five years ago we would be free now. Instead we are under the thumb.
I would vote for the first candidate that would stop the benefits system to new arrivals and spend the money instead on alternate fuels.
Posted by: Borg at January 12, 2007 11:32 PM
Borg
Dr. Abd Al-Baset Al-Sayyed seems to have glossed over the fact that time is a function of longitude, not latitude, even if Mecca was on the magnetic equator - we all know that the entire Arabian peninsula is north of the equator.
tgusa
I've turned my emotions around. Whenever an Islamic outrage occurs, my reaction is more along the lines of "What else does one expect of these vermin?" I leave people who are ignorant about the vile nature of Islam shocked by my nonchalance, pointing out to them that nothing is new, and all of it is the norm in Islam.
Trust me - nobody has the emotional firepower to exhaust over even a fraction of what Islam has done to any country.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at January 12, 2007 11:38 PM
They used to say on the school yard when I was young; Better Dead Than Red. Yes, some of us still believe that, only the color is now green.
Posted by: tgusa at January 12, 2007 11:41 PM
The should put some funds aside for the Australian clerical clown to go to Somalia as the aussies told him "You don’t have to return"
Senior members of the Federal Government sent controversial Islamic cleric Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilaly an unequivocal message yesterday after his latest indiscretion, saying he did not have to come back to Australia if he was so disenchanted with the country.
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said the Mufti was no longer taken seriously.
Prime Minister John Howard said the sheikh was becoming a “growing embarrassment to his community”, a spokesman said.
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2007/01/disturbing-images-australia.html
Posted by: shiva at January 13, 2007 3:24 AM
If you havnt already done so, please help me save my country by voting against a planned 'Mega-mosque'in london.
www.thisislondon.co.uk/poll/poll-18791-details/ques-18669-id/%A3100m+mosque:+Vote+now/poll.do
At this moment it stands at 2/3 for and 1/3 against.
Please make your friends and relatives vote against this.
We need your help.
Thank you.
Posted by: BlowHammed at January 13, 2007 3:55 AM
Borg, who cares if it's permitted. Do it, and do it now!
I think that from next decade onwards, the islamification of Europe will be in full swing.
Hold underground meetings; do it all in secret. Just do it!
Posted by: Voltaire at January 13, 2007 4:30 AM
If they need funds for Jihad, why didn't they just apply to the council for a grant?
Posted by: Celsius at January 13, 2007 5:45 AM
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