Author: Rashmee Z Ahmed, Times
News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 14, 2001
LONDON: In London, a disabled Muslim
cleric with a passport revoked by the government, a following across continents
and ambitions to convert the West to Islam, pronounces on the attacks in
New York and Washington: "America had it coming".
Even as he faces the predictable
rush of Western hostility and suspicion against a section of the Muslim
community, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, founder and leader of the radical
Al Muhajiroun group, told The Times of India, "Yes, it is Muslims who have
done this. There is no one else who would feel that much anger against
America".
Al Muhajiroun, which has offices
here, in Pakistan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Mauritius, is alleged to train
"fighters" for Kashmir, the Palestinian territories and Chechnya.
Sheikh Omar, who openly acknowledges
that he shares ideas and information and has friends and acquaintances
among some of the Muslim groups denounced as terrorist organisations worldwide,
said in an exclusive interview that he had spoken to 68 groups since the
attacks happened on Tuesday.
"I have spoken to everyone, jehadi
groups, radical groups, people who offer support of all sorts. You name
it: Algeria's GIA, Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish -e Mohammed,
Tanzeem ul Jihad of Egypt. none of them know who did it, none of them claim
responsibility, but everyone is agreed that these are the consequences
of American atrocities".
The Al-Muhajiroun leader, who is
bitterly opposed to Britain's new anti-terrorism law, "which makes it an
offence even to carry a pamphlet supporting Lashkar-e-Taiba", added however,
that he had not spoken to those close to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi
exile that America regards as its enemy number one. "We don't agree with
bin Laden's methodology," he said blandly.
In the hours since the attacks on
American soil, the world media has been increasingly keen to hear the views
of Sheikh Omar, a Syrian exile, who advocates pan-Islamic militancy against
the West.
Craftily denying that he had "arms
training camps," Sheikh Omar would only say that several young Muslim men
in his group "follow their religious obligation to keep fit and have physical
training".
Sheikh Omar, a spokesman for the
International Islamic Front, is seen to represent the growing radical Islamic
threat across the Western world, not least in Britain, France and Germany
with their huge Muslim populations running into several millions.
Even as the British prime minister
insisted on Wednesday that it was time for right-thinking Muslims to make
clear that "acts of terrorism and savagery were wholly contrary to the
Islamic faith", Sheikh Omar repeated that "Muslims believe that if they
die for a just cause they go to paradise".
Commentators warn of the inherent
potential for conflict, something West Asia expert Toby Dodge describes
as "a very worrying climate for Muslims in Europe, especially with talk
of a civilisational clash".
But Sheikh Omar, for one, remains
unconcerned and outspoken. "They rush to judge Muslim groups because they
feel guilty that they have done something to us. The question is not who
did it, but why America creates more enemies than friends".
