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Islamic State recruiting in UK mosques

Sep 11, 2014 10:06 am By Robert Spencer

UK-JihadisNow wait a minute. We all know that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. Barack Obama and John Kerry tell us so, and in Britain, David Cameron and Philip Hammond and a host of others have said the same thing. So how is it that the Islamic State would be recruiting in British mosques? Don’t the vast majority of peaceful Muslims rise up as one and denounce and expel the extremists? What’s that? They don’t? Now, why is that?

“Isis recruitment moves from online networks to British mosques,” by Shiv Malik and Sandra Laville, The Guardian, September 5, 2014:

Networks of radicals are re-emerging in British mosques and elsewhere to encourage and facilitate Muslims wanting to travel to Syria and Iraq to fight for Islamic State (Isis).

Until now most fighters from Britain who are known to have travelled to Syria have been persuaded and helped via online networks where extremists provide advice on crossing the Turkish border and linking up with Isis fighters.

But a combination of a Turkish border clampdown and a focus by counter-terrorist police on taking down online networks has led to recruitment on the ground becoming more important, sources say.

Communities of radicals recruiting young Brits are thought to include preachers, battle-hardened returning fighters and jihad sympathisers.

Examples of on the ground recruitment have been seen in Cardiff and Birmingham – amid wider evidence that the UK is being specifically targeted by those with links to Isis in Europe.

Abdullah, 19, who tweets as @Jihadwitness – and says he is an Isis supporter based in another European country – said the UK was of interest because it has “a large minority of Salafis”. He was one of the first people to put the video of the murder of James Foley on Twitter.

The Salafist strands in Islam tend to promote a fundamentalist outlook, a strict adherence to sharia law and a belief that it is incumbent on believers to fight holy war, or jihad. Abdullah, who declined to give the Guardian his surname, said he believed active recruitment was now taking place in mosques and other centres across Europe following Isis successes and their announcement that they had established a theological state, or caliphate (khilafah) spanning Syria and Iraq.

“We’re really excited to come in and join the khilafah. I know many brothers who have said the recruitment has been booming ever since the announcement [of the caliphate’s establishment] was made because this is what all these groups fought for for years and years,” he said.

A steady stream of Britons continue to make their way to Syria, according to counter-terrorism sources. An estimated 500 to 600 individuals are known to have travelled to the country, and 250 have since returned. Anti-terrorism investigators have growing concerns that a minority of those who return might be planning to attack Britain – under the direction of the Isis leadership or in a lone action.

According to figures from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), Britain has the second largest number of foreign fighters in Syria out of any European country.

In Cardiff, from where three Britons travelled to fight in Syria last year, many in the Muslim community are concerned about extremist messages coming from some preachers in the city.

The imam of the Jalalia mosque, Mohammad Bashir Uddin, resigned last month in protest over radical preaching there. At the time Uddin, the imam, told a local newspaper: “People don’t understand the relationship between Salafism and terrorism.” Women from the same mosque have raised a petition against the use of Salafi speakers and the subjugation of women contained in their teachings, and given it to the mosque committee.‬

But Muhammed Bashir Ahmed, chairman of the mosque committee, denied extremist teachings were coming from his mosque. He said the imam had not objected to the particular Salafi speaker at the time.‬Ahmed said he had received the petition but no action was being taken as “there was nothing wrong”.‬

The Charity Commission carried out an assessment after the imam’s resignation. But a spokeswoman said that after interviewing the mosque committee, the commission had been reassured. But the commission did not speak to the imam who had made the allegations.‬

The Charity Commission told the Guardian it was also examining another mosque in Cardiff – the Al Manar mosque, where the three men who travelled to Syria worshipped. Nasser Muthana, Assel Muthana and Reyaad Khan from the city travelled to Syria last year. Nasser Muthana subsequently appeared in a propaganda video produced by Isis. It is thought up to six men from the Welsh city may be in Syria.

Sheikh Zane Abdo, imam of the South Wales Islamic centre in Butetown, said many were concerned about speakers with extremist links preaching in Cardiff. “The local Muslim community, the mosques, our leaders need to be working a lot more closely with each other and with the local authority, with the parents, with the police to prevent people from being radicalised, to prevent further heartache,” he said.

In Birmingham a leaked police report published this week reveals that extremists are providing support and facilitation for those wishing up travel abroad to fight. The report, written by former assistant chief constable Sharon Rowe in 2013 and leaked to a local newspaper on Friday, says: “Influential extremists continue to operate in Birmingham, promoting extremist ideologies.” Rowe said they were operating from locations including gyms, restaurants and cafes, which are “used to facilitate extremist activity by allowing key figures to operate and promulgate their message”.

Two men from Birmingham are due to be sentenced this month after travelling to Syria to fight. Yusuf Sarwar and Mohammed Ahmed, both 22, pleaded guilty to terror charges at Woolwich crown court.

One parent – Walid el-Araj – speaking for the first time a year after his son’s death, said he still had no real idea as to how his 23-year-old son, Mohammed el-Araj, from Ladbroke Grove, west London, was encouraged to travel to Syria. He is sure that others were involved.

He told the Guardian his son had spun a series of lies in the months preceding his departure for Syria. “I thought that he was at college and he wasn’t. I thought he was already [enrolled] at a course but he wasn’t.

“Always, because I believed him, he gave me a positive answer about any questions [I had]. And I was busy with my work. Any time I asked, when I arrived home, and ask ‘where is he’ … he’d be at the mosque.”

“I don’t know which mosque. I wish I knew the mosque. Because I was seriously angry. I want to catch any of these imams and want to find out how they make these young boys [do this].”

El-Araj is was killed in Syria in August 2013, around the same time as another west Londoner, 22-year-old Choukri Ellekhlifi. The death has left him heartbroken he said. “I lost my son … he was born from my hand but I didn’t know how to control him … my life is destroyed completely.”

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Filed Under: Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh), mosques, United Kingdom Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Jay Boo says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 10:13 am

    Could this Islamic State be the result of a ‘home grown’ insurgency inspired to fight against Islamophobia in the Middle East caused by an obscure film called “Innocence of Muslims”?
    Help us Hillary.
    Obama is stumbling for an explanation having forgotten the standard go-to excuse.

  2. mariam rove says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 10:33 am

    no kidding! Does Cameron know this? Or does he still believe that Islam is a religion of peace? M

  3. Hrothgar54 says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 10:39 am

    Read this paste from Google, lest we forget with our attention spans now revolving around social media:

    This was Awliki’s mosque.

    “The Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center (Arabic: مركز دار الهجرة الاسلامي‎, English: Land of Migration) is an open mosque in Northern Virginia. It is located in Culmore, Lake Barcroft area of Seven Corners, in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, directly between the Bailey’s Crossroads, and Seven Corners U.S. Post Offices.[1][2][3] It is in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area.”

    Read the extensive write Wikipedia up which details Awliki’s bomber-associates.

    Lest we forget.

    • Jay Boo says

      Sep 11, 2014 at 11:29 am

      But what about the humiliation of Muslims?
      (their excuse for unbridled vanity hides behind false humility)
      Is it really possible to humiliate Muslims who kiss the floor in display five times a day (as if to pray)?
      They even expect us to believe Their Serpent of Satan was a prophet.

      No one could possibly humiliate Muslims more than Muslims themselves.

      • David, Thailand says

        Sep 11, 2014 at 8:00 pm

        “Is it really possible to humiliate Muslims who kiss the floor in display five times a day…”

        It was Musa (Moses) that persuaded Mohamed to negotiate with Allah against His command that Muslims hit the deck 50 times each day.

  4. Salah says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 10:57 am

    They hate us. Yet, they’re IN THE W.H.

    Happy 9/11 cake on Muslim Brotherhood social media page:

    http://www.youm7.com/story/2014/9/11/%D8%B5%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%89_%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%89_11_%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A8%D8%B1_%D8%A8%D9%80%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%A9_%D8%A8%D9%86_%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%86/1859347#.VBG2s6NuTUY

  5. Beagle says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 11:25 am

    “The Salafist strands in Islam tend to promote a fundamentalist outlook, a strict adherence to sharia law and a belief that it is incumbent on believers to fight holy war, or jihad. ”
    — —

    I was banned from CiF at the Guardian for saying things almost exactly like this. Six years later….
    Oh, I was right all along? It turns out little old me was more correct than your entire editorial board? Shucks. Thanks for the non-apology to every person you called “Islamophobic” the last decade or more.

  6. mortimer says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 1:04 pm

    The Achilles’ heel of Obama’s argument is that mosques do nothing to stop the recruiting of jihadists from their midst.

    Obama is therefor unable to explain why fervent, observant Muslims join ISIS to conduct jihad.

  7. Max Modine says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 3:18 pm

    REMEMBER 9/11.

  8. GP says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 3:50 pm

    Islamic State recruiting in UK mosques-

    Ahh…Duh!!

  9. GP says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    Specifically, how is a mosque a threat to the community within which it is built?
    Every single mosque in the world, by definition, is modeled on the mosque of Muhammad in Medina in accordance with the Sunnah. The Sunnah interprets the Qur’an by reporting exhaustively on everything that Muhammad said, did, or consented to. Therefore, his Medina mosque, the first mosque, was a place where he gave judgments, where he decided who would be executed, where he instituted policy—domestic and military— where Jihad war strategies were designed. Consequently, it was a storage place for arms, a military training base, and was where troops were blessed and dispatched. Literally they were sent to conquer – first the whole of Arabia, and then the rest of the known world. Therefore if the present-day mosque is modeled as per the Sunnah of Muhammad then there should be very serious concern. As is well-known, Muslims are required to follow the example (Sunnah) of Muhammad—and according to Sura 33:36 it is not an option or a matter of opinion: “It is not for a believer, man or woman, when Allâh and His Messenger have decreed a matter that they should have any option in their decision. And whoever disobeys Allâh and His Messenger, he has indeed strayed in a plain error.” This explains and establishes beyond doubt why arms have been found in mosques in various countries, and in different capital cities.

    • EYESOPEN says

      Sep 11, 2014 at 7:03 pm

      Absolutely correct GP. Now all you have to do is forward that post to the effa-bee-eye and the department of homeless insecurity. Who knows? They may just have an epiphany – in a manner of speaking.

  10. dumbledoresarmy says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 7:29 pm

    Not Salafism.

    Islam.

    Not Wahabbis.

    Islam.

    Islam, Islam, Islam.

    Anyone who has read the basic historical overviews contained in a/ Serge Trifkovic’s “The Sword of the Prophet” or in Andrew Bostom’s encyclopedic tome, “The Legacy of Jihad” knows that the sorts of things that ISIS, or Boko Haram, or Al Shabaab do and have done – which are similar to things done by Al Qaeda, by Abu Sayyaf, by the Taliban, by the Ikhwan – were being done by Muslims both Sunni and Shiite, on three continents, continuously from the moment that the Ummah or Mohammedan Mob first got going in the 7th century or thereabouts.

    Got Muslims? Got Jihad.

    Wherever there are Muslims there *will* be, sooner or later, JIHAD.

  11. Pat Hermosa says

    Sep 11, 2014 at 9:41 pm

    The “Islamic State” recruiting in UK mosques? Why is that such a surprise?? When Europe opened its doors to the Islamic world, their countries have been smothered by the tsunami of ‘immigrants’ who have absolutely no qualms about accepting the generosity of the ignorant West.

    Ask anyone who lives in the UK how Islam has suffocated its social system of ‘benefits,’ its cities are clogged with no-go zones for those who aren’t Muslim. The political-correctness has made it a crime for anyone who criticizes Islam and its barbaric ‘laws.’ Islam isn’t a religion, it’s a socio-political WAY of LIFE that smothers anything resembling freedom of thought.

  12. Judi says

    Sep 12, 2014 at 7:18 am

    Michael – Agree 100% with you. I have been saying this for years. There is now no deterrent.

  13. GP says

    Sep 12, 2014 at 12:06 pm

    First day back at school somewhere in Europe

    The teacher began calling out the names of the pupils :

    “Mustafa Al Eih Zeri ?” – “Here miss.”

    “Achmed El Kabul ?” – “Here miss.”

    “Fatima Al Hayek ? ” – “Here miss.”

    “Ali Abdul Olmi ?” – “Here miss.”

    “Mohammed Bin Kadir ?” – “Here miss.”

    “Ali Son al En”, silence in the classroom.

    “Ali Son al En” – continued silence as everyone looked around the room.

    The teacher repeated the call. A girl stood up and said
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *
    *
    “Sorry, miss, I think that’s me. It’s pronounced Alison Allen

    Don’t laugh, this comes near to your town soon

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