Militant Imams Under Scrutiny Across Europe By DON VAN NATTA Jr. and LOWELL BERGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/25/international LONDON, Jan. 24 - In nightly sermons broadcast on the Internet, Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, a 46-year-old Syrian-born cleric, has urged young Muslim men all over the world to support the Iraq insurgency on the front line of "the global jihad," investigators say. He struck a similarly defiant tone this month at a rally attended by 500 people at a central London meeting hall, where a giant screen behind him showed images of the World Trade Center falling. "Allah akbar!" - "God is great" - some audience members shouted at the images. After eavesdropping for months on his nightly praise of the Sept. 11 hijackers and of suicide bombings, Scotland Yard said last week that it was investigating Sheik Omar, the leader of Al Muhajiroun, Britain's largest Muslim group, and officials are exploring whether they can deport him. "We're fed up with him," said a senior British official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He needs to be stopped, or he needs to go." The more aggressive approach toward Sheik Omar is part of an increasing effort to monitor and restrict militant imams in Britain and across Europe. Authorities have stepped up surveillance of militant mosques in several countries, including Germany and France. French officials deported an imam this month after officials said he was inspiring men to join the jihad. One major concern, officials say, is that more heated religious rhetoric is encouraging young men to leave home to fight in Iraq. Although the dimensions of the recruitment effort from Europe to Iraq are not clear, there are indications that it is intensifying. On Sunday, the German police arrested a man suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda and charged him with recruiting men to carry out suicide bombings in Iraq. These arrests were part of an ongoing investigation in cooperation with the United States of recruitment and other terrorist activities in Europe. A senior German official said he was certain there would be additional arrests of militants inside the country who have set up sophisticated recruitment and smuggling networks that lead to Iraq. Italian investigators say several recruits from Italy carried out bombing attacks in Baghdad. Swiss officials say they are concerned that several militant clerics have openly urged men to become terrorists. And in Jordan, senior officials say they have recently arrested several dozen men who intended to cross the Iraqi border to serve as foreign fighters. Bohre Eddine Benvahia, the 33-year-old imam recently deported by France to Algeria, had urged young men in a working-class neighborhood of L'Ariane, outside Nice, to join jihad, French intelligence officials said. Sheik Omar did not return repeated phone calls over the past several days. Last week, he denied in several interviews that he had urged people to become foreign fighters in Iraq, saying his comments had been taken out of context. "I believe Muslims are obliged to support their Muslim brothers abroad - verbally, financially, politically," he told The Associated Press. "I never said, 'Go abroad.' But if people want to go abroad, it's a very good thing to do. But we never recruit people to go abroad." News of the central London rally, which was first reported by United Press International, and portions of Sheik Omar's nightly Internet sermons, have alarmed senior British officials. In one sermon last week, Sheik Omar called Al Qaeda "the victorious group" that he said Muslims were "obliged" to join. Home Secretary Charles Clarke has asked officials to investigate whether they can help relocate Sheik Omar to Syria or Lebanon. Like their counterparts in Britain, counterterrorism officials in Germany say they have seen indications of an increase in attempts by groups there to recruit young fighters to travel to Iraq to fight. Some men in recent weeks have planned to go to Iraq to carry out suicide bombing missions, the officials said. In the arrest on Sunday, prosecutors said a man they identified as Ibrahim Mohamed K., a 29-year-old Iraqi from Mainz, Germany, had persuaded a 31-year-old man, Yasser Abu S., to go to Iraq on a suicide bombing mission. _______________________________________ Is it the decentralized organization of Islam that allows these guys to seem legitimate?
What's scary is that England's largest Muslim group, according to the article, is under the same scrutiny. That's not the impression some people have been projecting.
I think, in part, that you are right Hayes. Being that there is no unified theology, and multiple sects that vie for power for their interpretation as the "true" path leaves vast latitude for individuals to distort a message to their particular slant. The same is true of nondenominational bible churches or lose nit denominations like The Church of Christ--EXCEPT that they don't usually blow themselves up to kill infidels.... However, this "Sheik" needs to be, at the VERY least, deported back to Syria. Images of the twin towers falling and thousands being slaughtered as a backdrop to a sermon on how "God is Great" classify him as ignorant and cruel at best or an active supporter of terrorism at worst. He is encouraging his followers to join their Muslim brother's by not technically recruiting them to go to Iraq, or the U.S. for that matter, and blow $hit up--he needs a swift kick to the head. Glad he is targeted and has been identified as a threat--at least our allies have stumbled on a break instead of simply imprisoning people for three years and not charging them with anything.
Woulda, Exactly !! Who the hell does he think he is? Heck, send him to Israel let the Mousad deal with him. DD
The Geneva convention applies to civilians as well. If they aren't considered military they would be considered civilians even if they are terrorists.
And why would that prevent them from being deported? On that note, FB, what have you to say about the largest Muslim group in Britain espousing this stuff?
I'd say they have a rotten leader, and it is ashamed that they are becoming more radicalized. A different policy toward that region would probably help ease that kind of thing quite nicely.
A different policy toward Britain? Don't you think its a little disingenous to start in on Iraq when this has been going on well before the Iraqi intervention?
IT's not just Iraq. It's Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan etc. These are dictatorships. If we say we are for democracy etc. then supporting these dictatroships and chumming up with them isn't the way to do it. It did start long before Iraq. And all of a sudden claiming that we want democracy in the middle east and then pointing a gun at a nation and saying democratize or die isn't the best way to spread it. I'm talking about changing our policy toward all of these nations, as well as Iraq. I agree that it should have started long ago. But that radicalization has only worsened since, so clearly we aren't doing anything to prevent future terrorists. That's bad.
Right. Maybe we should impose embargo's on every non-democratic regime? That would be interesting since we'd be cutting of most of the world sans (most of) Europe, Latin America and India. Is it your position that we should be supporting these Imams since they rail against dictatorships? Do these imams think it is good we support democracy instead of the mullahocracy in Iran? (don't think so)
Of course we shouldn't be supporting those Imams. But the radicalization doesn't come as much because we don't support authoritarian theocracy, but because we support authoritarian dictatorships that oppress these people. We need to make sure we never again overthrow an elected governement like we did in Iran in the first place. By supporting the Shah that is what enabled the Mullahs there to gain support and eventually power. Had we left the democratically government in place there instead of replacing it with 'our SOB' then the hostage situation nor the rise of the mullahs would have happened. We should have been supporting democracy in these places long ago. We need to start now. Only we need to be genuine about it. We don't do it forcefully at the point of a gun. That is a horrible way to spread democracy. And it should never be a Johnny come lately of reasons why we are involved some place, that only gets mentioned because our original rationale blew up in our faces. That doesn't make democracy seem credible to anyone either. We are hoping to spread democracy not give it a black eye.
That's just bogus. Many of these guys denouce 'democracy' flat out. Your analysis that supporting democratic reform would quell them is misguided, and you're legitimizing their radicalization by creating a linkage that doesn't exist. They don't inherently reject restrictive regimes, they embrace them. They reject the regimes in Saudi etc because they are not mullahocracies, not because they aren't democratic.
It isn't bogus at all. I agree that the radical Imams denounce democracy. Most of them would continue to denounce it no matter what we did. It's not about cutting out the radical Imams, it is about cutting out their growing support. There support has grown because of authoritarian oppression, and continues to grow today in part because our nation is behaving hypocrtically. If every Arab nation was a prosperous democracy right now, there would still be radical Imams wanting theocratic rule. But they would all have very little support and not be a very significant threat. Those that were a real threat would be easier to locate and eradicate. That isn't the case. Instead there are oppressive regimes supported by the most powerful nation in the world. That nation in the past has brought down one democracy in the region, supported the rule of the aristocratic authoritarians, made up a sundry of reasons for invading Iraq, and finally settled on bringing democracy to it by force, while continuing to support other aristocratic regimes in the region. The only people who seem to be able to hurt or at least bother that powerful nation are the radical Mullahs. That isn't the only reason for radicalization, but is one of the reasons for recent increase in radicalization. Consistent support for true democracy, rather than cronyism by the U.S. would go a long way to help de-radicalize segments of the middle east. Sadly democracy has been given a black eye by our current administration, and isn't being presented as a very appealing form of govt. The best way to sell democracy is to show how good, and beneficial it is.
Considering most of the regimes you speak of are supported by the world at large, I think its grandly oversimplifying to say 'the US supports the regimes and that's what increases their base of support.' In addition, your focus on the regimes in place ignores the greater conflict between Islam, as practiced by these Imams, and the world at large. What does the US policy have to do with Islamic violence in Kashmir? Or in France? Or in Germany? Or in China. Nothing. If US policy changed would their support evaporate? Unlikely.
The islamic violence in Kashmir goes both ways. There were slaughters by the Indians as well there. As far as France is concerned their own policies don't help out that. The same goes for them. If they didn't torture, and brutalize, etc. they too might help in reducing radicalism. As I said there will always be some radicalism. But it can be reduced. It didn't have to get this strong, and the road toward reducing it by policy has been made harder, but it can be done. And because 100% of the radicalization won't disappear doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can to reduce it. We can fight only the symptoms, or we can fight the symptoms as well as the disease.
