Higher Call to arms

A growing number of students are being recruited on British campuses by Islamic extremists - and end up on the world's frontlines.

Three students from Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, withdrew from their studies last February to train abroad and eventually engage in "jihad" - the holy war. They are the latest in an increasing number of British Muslim students who have been recruited from campuses by extremist Islamic parties to train abroad and fight in regions like Kosovo, Chechnya and Kashmir. Such recruitment, which has been going on for more than a decade, has attracted a large number of students over the years, some of whom have actually fought in different war zones and died.

Students as young as 16 are known to have been recruited for military training abroad, often without their parents knowing anything about it.

The Queen Mary students, two of whom were studying computer science and the other engineering, were recruited by the extremist party Al-Muhajiroun, which is active in British campuses throughout the country, and which has been banned by several universities for its extreme views.

The founder of Al-Muhajiroun, Sheikh Omar Bakri-Muhammad, based in London, personally arranged the recruitment of the three students through his contacts in Britain and abroad.

Sheikh Bakri-Muhammad, who founded the party in Saudi Arabia in 1983, says it is the duty of all Muslims to engage in jihad. He said: "I believe in the divine cause for Muslims to struggle."

Al-Muhajiroun, which has a network of centres around the world, is divided into two wings, said Sheik Bakri. "There is the Da'wah (propagation) network, and there is the Jihad Network," he added. It is the Jihad Network of the party that recruits people for military campaigns, while the Da'wah wing "spreads the word of Islam" through lectures, conferences, stalls and leaflets.

It is the Da'wah Network that attracts students to the party in campuses, as universities are key venues for lectures and talks. Students interested in the party become members, after which they are told of the possibility of engaging in military struggles "for the sake of Islam".

The president of the National Union of Students, Andrew Pakes, has described the military recruitment of Al-Muhajiroun and other parties as "morally reprehensible". He said: "I condemn the behaviour utterly. It is morally wrong to recruit students via the universities to become involved in paramilitary training and campaigns of violence."

Pakes admitted that the NUS, which has banned Islamic parties in many campuses around the country for reasons of anti-Semitism and homophobia, was never aware of such military recruitment.

He promised that the NUS would exercise a "no-platform policy" for any parties that engaged in such activities. "I think I'd be encouraging the NUS to be on the lookout for such recruitment," he said.

It is difficult, however, to spot parties like Al-Muhajiroun recruiting students, as it is done with great secrecy. Although the Da'awah Network of Al-Muhajiroun openly condemns Israel, Russia's actions in Chechnya and India's stance in Kashmir, and calls on Muslims to fight towards creating a global Islamic state (khilafah), it seldom discloses its Jihad wing to the wider public.

Members of the party who want to go abroad and become Mojahedin (jihad warriors) contact key party figures. They introduce them to sources in Britain that have connections with guerrilla training camps in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Sheikh Bakri-Muhammad admitted that there is a global network of agents with connections to the military camps, some of whom work from Britain.

Abdullah (not his real name) was a student at a London University college when he became attracted to Islamic parties in his final year. "In my final year I turned towards Islam. I listened to a few people and groups, visiting speakers, etc. That helped my Islamic awakening," he says.

Since then he has become a devoted member of an Islamic party, which he wouldn't name. Through the party he has gone abroad for military training, and returned to England after completing it six months ago.

"There are quite a few people in the UK who can arrange for you to go to the camps," he says. The route the recruits take to the military camps from countries like Britain are complicated, full of stops and changes to prevent authorities from tracing them.

"Often you would go from England to France, and from there to another country, and so on," he says. "Then once you are in the right country you would go by car or rail to a specified destination, and then be guided to the actual camps.

"The majority of spaces are filled by students. Even 16-to 17-year-olds skip schools to go on training." Often people of 16 or 17 lie to their parents, saying they are going on a summer holiday to places like America. But they actually go to training and return to England a few weeks later, so their parents still think they they are just back from holiday.

"You see, the students actually do go to America, just as they say to their parents. But from America they would fly to somewhere else and eventually to the camps. America would be part of their route, the connecting flight," he said.

Abdullah also said that sometimes the families know about the students' involvement and are usually supportive of it.

The military camps are normally run by Muslim soldiers who have defected from their national armies. They train the recruits as well as providing them with free food and board. "The only thing that the recruits pay for are their flights," says Abdullah. "In every training camp there is the Amir-ul-Jihad [jihad leader], who is in charge of the entire camp."

After finishing the training, the Amir-ul-Jihad will ask the recruits if the y actually want to go on to fight. "You are given the choice to fight or come back to the UK to recruit other people," says Abdullah.

He denies that coercion or force is ever used to ensure the recruits go on to fight: "You always have a choice." However, he admits that sometimes the Amir-ul-Jihad will encourage the better recruits to fight, and that some students get killed in battle. He himself knows someone who has become "shahid" (martyr). "He fought in the Bosnian war. But he did not die there. He went to another war zone and became shahid," says Abdullah.

Osman Ali, who lives in the London suburbs, is another recruit who has returned from training somewhere in Europe.

"I've had lots of contacts who have become shahid in the battlefield in Chechnya," he says. "There have also been many in Kashmir." He points out that Kashmir is a popular choice for the many British recruits, because of their Pakistani origin.

Once the recruits are ready, they joint armies such as the International Islamic Front (also founded by Sheikh Bakri-Muhammad) and Harekat-ul-Mujahidun, under whose command they fight. In Kashmir, Osman says, "often the Pakistani army knows we are fighting alongside them. It monitors our camps, but never crack down on it."

Osman and Abdullah both maintain the camps are funded internationally through donations, by groups or individuals. "In some locations [camps] you even get funding from Osama bin Laden" says Abdullah. "He doesn't just help financially, but also with military expertise." Bin Laden not only assists other mojahedin groups but also has his own independent army, also called the International Islamic Front.

It is still not clear why so many British Muslim students are attracted by Islamic extremist parties and the idea ofjihad. For believers like Abdullah and Osman Ali, however, it is a religious duty to propagate Islam and defend fellow Muslims anywhere in the world. They know that the military warfare they are engaged in may be called terrorism by the British government. But they are convinced that they are obeying a higher authority.

"The law could go to hell," says Abdullah. "On the one hand I have Tony Blair to follow, and on the other my creator. So who do you want me to follow? For me it's a divine obligation to fight."

This personal belief is also what the extremist parties preach, so it's difficult to know what is faith and what is indoctrination. Sheikh Bakri-Muhammad has no qualms about recruiting people to go to war. To him "sovereignty is for God, not for people".

He said Al-Muhajiroun's sole purpose is to "establish the Islamic state," through both propagation and jihad. "I want Britain to become an Islamic state. I want to see the flag of Islam raised in 10 Downing Street."

To Sheikh Bakri-Muhammad, Islamising Britain is a "divine duty". He regularly preaches Islamic globalisation in his lectures and in party literature. His views may seem extreme to moderate Muslims, yet Al-Muhajiroun is one of the largest Islamic parties in Britain, and is attracting more and more young people.

Andrew Pakes thinks that the network of Islamic groups is strong, which makes them effective: "I think the links between Islamic groups in Britain are greater than any other groups." And their rhetoric is powerful: "I imagine it has to be some intoxicating force of arguments."

Abdul Rehman Salim, the president of the Society of Muslim Students, gives another reason: "A lot of Muslims have been disillusioned by the Gulf war. There has been a rise [in recruitment] since that war."

The wars in the nineties certainly turned a lot of Muslim students towards the extremist parties. It was during the Bosnian conflict that Abdullah himself "turned towards Islam" - at the time he was in his final year at university. Pakes has said that individual student unions can ban any Islamic parties that engage in paramilitary recruitment, and that he will warn the NUS of "them.

The unions are not for paramilitary recruitment but for the cultural and educational needs of students," he says. "Anyway, such recruitment contravenes equality policies, since they only take certain types of recruits [namely Muslim] and not others. This is why the NUS nationally advocated the removal of British Army recruitment because of their policy on homosexuality." Although Queen Mary and Westfield College declined to comment on the three students who withdrew from their studies, it nevertheless said: "We have a policy of freedom of speech, as required by successive education acts. In terms of activity on campus there is therefore a presumption against banning, provided activities are within the law and not a threat to college students, staff or property.

"But the college is strongly opposed to any behaviour which creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment for work or study, whether on sexual or racial grounds. Specifically, the college prohibits the posting and/or distribution of notices, signs or posters which are offensive, intimidating, threatening, indecent or illegal. Certain groups which may cause a security risk on campus are also banned from hiring rooms on college premises."

Pakes stresses that banning extremist Islamic groups recruiting students was in the best interest of Muslim students: "It's not about attacking Muslims, but taking care of the welfare of Muslim students."

And yet banning Islamic parties such as Al-Muhajiroun, the Society of Muslim Students and Hizb-ut-Tahrir can prove ineffectual.

Abdul Rehman Salim says that when his society is banned from a student union "we use different society names to hold meetings. When the audience is keen to listen, we tell them who we really are."

Sheikh Bakri-Muhammad says that when a student union bans Al-Muhajiroun "we use the names of societies, like the Pakistani Society, the Bangladeshi Society, etc, to get in."

"When a college like the London School of Economics bans us, we set up stalls outside the campus, where the students can reach us but the authorities can do nothing," he adds. These methods are used by the parties to get into campuses where they are already banned, such as Manchester and Leeds.
 

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