Author:
Publication: Herald Sun
Date: October 30, 2003
URL: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7721614%5E421,00.html
Jihad, or holy war, was not appropriate
in Australia, but was acceptable in Iraq and other nations, a Melbourne
Muslim cleric said overnight.
On SBS TV's Insight program, Sheik
Mohammed Omran defended fundamentalism in the wake of ASIO raids on Islamic
Youth Movement headquarters at Lakemba in Sydney this week.
The raids followed an investigation
into suspected terrorist Willie Brigitte, who has been deported from Australia
and is being interrogated by French authorities.
Sheik Omran said he had a close
relationship with ASIO, and was opposed to all forms of local terrorism.
He said two alleged leaders of Jemaah
Islamiyah in Australia - brothers Abdul Rahman Ayub and Abdul Rahim Ayub,
who left the country last year - had approached him for advice about attacking
the Israeli embassy in Canberra in the lead-up to the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
"I said to them, 'This is unacceptable
in Australia'. I said to them, 'This is not how we work here'," Sheik Omran
told SBS.
Reporter Sarah Ferguson asked: "Does
that mean that jihad is appropriate in other places?"
"Of course," Sheik Omran replied.
Asked if it was appropriate for
Muslim's to join the holy war against coalition forces in Iraq, Sheik Omran
said: "I would say, 'Yes'."
Sheik Hilali, of Sydney's Lakemba
mosque, told the program that Sheik Omran's views were dangerously radical.
"It is not to the benefit of young
people in any area to have a teacher like Omran ... not in Australia or
any Arabic or Islamic country," Sheik Hilali said.
Sheik Omran also defended Islamic
Youth Movement leader Bilal Khazal, who has been investigated by Spanish
and Lebanese authorities in relation to his alleged connections to a Lebanese
terrorist group.
"I'm sure he wouldn't support someone
to go and blow up a restaurant, especially if we know that restaurant is
in a Muslim area and the people will go and eat there, even if it's an
American company, but the people who will eat there are not Americans,"
Sheik Omran said.
