Islamist cleric declared war on Britain six months ago By Sean O’Neill
THE London bombings occurred exactly six months after an extremist cleric based in the capital declared that Islam was at war with Britain.
Investigators are examining their limited records on the followers of Omar Bakri Mohammed to determine if any have been recently recruited into an active terror cell.
In 2003 two of Mr Bakri Mohammed’s students, Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif, left home in Britain and took part in a Hamas suicide mission in Israel. A senior police source said: “The planners might have come from overseas but the bombers are likely to be British. The mindset needed to carry out these attacks is already established here.”
The greatest concern among investigators is that the bombers are young British Muslims with no known history of involvement with extremism.
Tracking Mr Bakri Mohammed’s followers has become particularly difficult since last year when he disbanded his al-Muhajiroun group and began to preach clandestinely via internet chatrooms.
In talks monitored by The Times in January, Mr Bakri Mohammed declared a shift in the view of Britain held by radical Islamists. He said: “The whole of Britain has become Dar ul-Harb ([and of war]. That Dar ul-Harb has not started yet, but still really they start it.”
Mr Bakri Mohammed, who was born in Syria and has lived in Britain since 1986, told his audience to become terrorists.
He said: “Al-Qaeda and all its branches of the world, that is the victorious group and they have the emir. You are obliged to join.” Britain had tolerated the presence of hardline Islamists in a stance that angered France, Spain and European countries. In return, radicals preached that Muslims lived in Britain under a “covenant of security” meaning that no jihadi attacks would occur here.
Officers may re-examine the activities of Mohammed al-Massari, a Saudi dissident, who has also lived in London since the 1990s. Dr al-Massari legally hosts a number of websites which, he admitted in a BBC Panorama interview on Sunday, could inspire young British Muslims to fight in Iraq. The sites included details on how to use a range of weaponry.
A third figure said to be promoting hardline views from Britain is Dr Saad al-Fagih, an Iraqi, who runs a series of websites used by Islamist groups around the world.
