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Iqbal Sacranie

Iqbal Sacranie

Muslim Council of Britain

Britain

20050807

Home Front: Culture Wars

Steyn - Europe has taken over the Holocaust

2009-02-01

Good lord, Glomotch, please do some frigging formatting! AoS. According to a poll by the University of Bielefeld, 62 per cent of Germans are "sick of all the harping on about German crimes against the Jews" - which is an unusually robust formulation for a multiple-choice questionnaire, but at least has the advantage of leaving us in no confusion as to how things stand in this week of panEuropean Holocaust "harping on". The old joke - that the Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz - gets truer every week. I have some sympathy for that 62 per cent. Killing six million people is a moral stain on one's nation that surely ought to endure more than a couple of generations. But, on the other hand, almost everything else about the Germany of 60 years ago is gone - its great power status, its military machine, its aggressive nationalism, its need for lebens-raum. The past is another country, but rarely as foreign as the Third Reich. Why should Holocaust guilt be the only enforced link with an otherwise discarded heritage? "Enforced" is the operative word. If most Germans don't feel guilty about the Holocaust, there's no point pretending they do. And that's the problem with all this week's Shoah business: it's largely a charade. The European establishment that has scheduled such lavish anniversary observances for this Thursday presides over a citizenry that, even if one discounts the synagogue-arsonists and cemetery-desecrators multiplying across the Continent, is either antipathetic to Jews, or "sick of all the harping on", or regards solemn Holocaust remembrance as a useful card to have in the hand of the slyer, suppler forms of anti-Semitism to which Europe is now prone. From time to time, the late Diana Mosley used to tell me how "clever" she thought the Jews were. If you pressed her to expand on the remark, it usually meant how clever they were in always keeping "the thing" - the Holocaust, as she could never quite bring herself to say - in the public eye, unlike the millions killed in the name of Communism. This is a fair point, though not one most people are willing to entertain from a pal of Hitler. But "the thing" seems most useful these days to non-Jews as a means of demonstrating that the Israelis are new Nazis and the Palestinians their Jews. Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has told the Home Secretary that his crowd will be boycotting Thursday's commemorations because it is racist and excludes any commemoration of the "holocaust" and "ongoing genocide" in Palestine. Ah, well. He's just some canny Muslim opportunist, can't blame the chap for trying it on. But look at how my colleagues at The Spectator chose to mark the anniversary. They ran a reminiscence by Anthony Lipmann, the Anglican son of an Auschwitz survivor, which contained the following sentence: "When on 27 January I take my mother's arm - tattoo number A-25466 - I will think not just of the crematoria and the cattle trucks but of Darfur, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Jenin, Fallujah." Jenin? Would that be the notorious 2002 "Jenin massacre"? There was no such thing, as I pointed out in this space at the time, when Robert Fisk and the rest of Fleet Street's gullible sob-sisters were going around weepin' an' a-wailin' about Palestinian mass graves and Israeli war crimes. Twenty-three Israelis were killed in fighting at the Jenin camp. Fifty-two Palestinians died, according to the Israelis. According to Arafat's official investigators, it was 56 Palestinians. Even if one accepts the higher figure, that means every single deceased Palestinian could have his own mass grave and there'd still be room to inter the collected works of Robert Fisk. Yet, despite the fact that the Jenin massacre is an obvious hallucination of Fleet Street's Palestine groupies, its rise to historical fact is unstoppable. To Lipmann, those 52-56 dead Palestinians weigh in the scales of history as heavy as six million Jews. And what's Fallujah doing bringing up the rear in his catalogue of horrors? In rounding up a few hundred head-hackers, the Yanks perpetrated another Auschwitz? These comparisons are so absurd as to barely qualify as "moral equivalence". I'm not a Jew, though since September 11 I've been assumed to be one. Nor am I, philosophically, a Zionist. Had I been British foreign secretary, I doubt I would have issued the Balfour Declaration. Nor am I much interested in whose land was whose hundreds or thousands of years ago. The reality is that the nation states of the region all date back to the 1930s and 1940s: the only difference is that Israel, unlike Syria and Iraq, has made a go of it. As for the notion that this or that people "deserve" a state, that's a dangerous post-modern concept of nationality and sovereignty. The United States doesn't exist because the colonists "deserved" a state, but because they went out and fought for one. Were the Palestinians to do that, they might succeed in pushing every last Jew into the sea, or they might win a less total victory, or they might be routed and have to flee to Damascus or Wolverhampton. But, whatever the outcome, it's hard to see that they would be any less comprehensively a wrecked people than they are after spending three generations in "refugee" "camps" while their "cause" is managed by a malign if impeccably multilateral coalition of UN bureaucrats, cynical Arab dictators, celebrity terrorists and meddling Europeans whose Palestinian fetishisation seems most explicable as the perverse by-product of the suppression of their traditional anti-Semitism. Americans and Europeans will never agree on this, and the demographic reality - the Islamisation of Europe - will only widen the chasm in the years ahead. But, if I were a European Jew, I would feel this week's observances bordered on cultural appropriation. The old defence against charges of anti-Semitism was: "But some of my best friends are Jewish." As the ancient hatreds rise again across the Continent, the political establishment's defence is: "But some of our best photo opportunities are Jewish."

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International-UN-NGOs

UN Condemns Counterterrorism

2008-01-04

By Robert Spencer The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, has succeeded in pushing through the UN a resolution condemning the “defamation of religions.” That’s “religions,” not “religion” – yet according to Cybercast News Service, “although the resolution refers to defamation of ‘religions,’ Islam is the only religion named in the text, which also takes a swipe at counter-terrorism security measures.” The OIC has been pushing hard for such a measure ever since cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten late in 2005. The resolution denounces “laws that stigmatize groups of people belonging to certain religions and faiths under a variety of pretexts relating to security and illegal immigration.” Muslims, it says, have suffered from “ethnic and religious profiling...in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001.” This is the fault, in part, of “the negative projection of Islam in the media.” The UN voices its “deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.” Such statements betray the assumption that any association of Islam with violence and terrorism is entirely the fault of non-Muslims. The fact that Muslims themselves routinely commit violent acts and justify them with reference to Islamic teachings is a fact we are not supposed to notice -- and indeed, if the sponsors of this resolution had their way, we would not be allowed to notice. This UN resolution is part of an ongoing effort. Several weeks ago, the OIC’s secretary-general, a Turkish historian named Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, was one of the speakers at the International Islamophobia Conference held in Istanbul. Ihsanoglu, according to CNS, denounced freedom of speech “as a cover in the West to promote anti-Islam sentiment.” Some of the world’s leading lights on Islam, both Muslim and non-Muslim, also spoke at the conference: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's Prime Minister and advocate of political Islam; Iqbal Sacranie of the CAIR-like Muslim Council of Britain; Saudi-funded academic John Esposito of Georgetown University; Karen Armstrong, the renowned dhimmi author; Louay Safi of the unindicted co-conspirator ISNA; Lord Nazim Ahmed, the British Muslim peer; Professor Norman Finkelstein, late of DePaul; the notoriously slick “Muslim Martin Luther” Tariq Ramadan, who is not allowed into the U.S.; the American neo-Nazi William Baker, who has addressed Muslim audiences in the U.S.; and many, many others. Surprise of surprises, these assembled dignitaries discovered that “Islamophobia” is a serious, serious problem, that must be addressed at the government level. Of course, attacks on innocent civilians are never justified. Louts, thugs and vigilantes have no excuse, and anyone who targets random Muslims and commits violence against them deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to Ihsanoglu or anyone else at this Conference that Muslims might done anything to provoke this rise in “Islamophobia,” if there has been such a rise, or that they can do anything themselves to eradicate it. No one seems to have realized how easy it would be to stamp out “Islamophobia” once and for all. Yet it could be done in a trice. If Muslims really wanted to end “Islamophobia” and the “defamation of religions” instantaneously, here’s how they can do it: 1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts. 2. Renounce definitively not just “terrorism,” as many Islamic groups in the U.S. and elsewhere have done many times in the past, but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. 3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis. 4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism. 5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities. If Muslims did those five things, voila! There will be no more “defamation” of Islam. But instead, this UN resolution is just the latest example of the evasion of responsibility and finger-pointing that we have seen from Islamic groups since 9/11 and before that. If a Muslim commits an act of violence and justifies it by reference to Islamic texts and teachings, it’s the fault of non-Muslims – either because they oppress Muslims, or because they dare to take note of the connection the perpetrator made between Islam and his act of violence. This evasion and denial should end. Government and law enforcement officials in the West should make sure it ends, by demanding that Islamic groups in the West be transparent and cooperative with anti-terror efforts. But this UN resolution only emphasizes that the movement is all in the other direction. We may only hope that this latest iteration of the Islamic jihad can be defeated before it becomes a crime to do so.

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Britain

"The Best Mosque in Britain"

2007-10-10

There are no nasty judges, booing crowds, tearful auditions or backstabbing. But the competition is just as tough. Eight mosques are vying to become Britain's Model Mosque 2007 in a televised competition which marries halal principles with the knock-out rules of reality TV. The series, shown tonight on the Islam Channel, is not a beauty pageant, as aesthetics are not important. Instead, mosques are assessed on their interfaith work, women's facilities, youth services and their transparency on finances, policies and management. Judges used these criteria to whittle the candidates down from 500 mosques to eight. The finalists hail from Bradford, Birmingham, Cricklewood, Croydon, Glasgow, Haringey, Leyton and Manchester. If any of our UK commentariat has an opinion or info about these, mosques or areas, please fill us in. The show started as a personal quest for Model Mosque producer Abrar Hussain, 29. "I wasn't too keen on my local mosque and my friend's one sounded better, it was doing stuff that mine wasn't and I was a bit jealous. There is so much disparity between mosque standards and the show is a way for mosques to see the positive work that is already being done. It's not about being horrible and embarrassing bad mosques. There's no nastiness. Nobody wants to be Simon Cowell." Each week a presenter grills two mosque representatives in the studio and viewers text in to keep in their favourite. The mosque with the most votes moves to the next stage. There will be a live final next month in front of the 25,000-strong Muslim crowd attending the Global Peace and Unity event at London's Excel Centre, and it will be broadcast to a potential audience of billions. Judges include Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob and Sir Iqbal Sacranie, from the Muslim Council of Britain. The winning mosque scoops a £35,000 consultancy prize, which will support funding and training proposals. Organisers are also keen to use the programme as a way of dispelling fears non-Muslims have about mosques. They dispatched questionnaires to 1,000 mosques and received 450 responses. Mr Hussain described the 14-month selection process as rigorous. "We did internet research, looked at press coverage, spoke to regular worshippers, prayed there ourselves - like mystery shopping. We did our homework. We did not find any evidence of this radicalisation that's supposed to be everywhere. The big surprise is how many good mosques are out there. I was also surprised to see how willing people were to help out." He and the channel's chief executive, Mohammed Ali, are wary of the show being interpreted in a non-religious way. Mr Ali said: "It's not the X-Factor because there is no singing and dancing and it's not mosque idol because worshipping idols is forbidden." Technically, it prolly *is* forbidden, but it is also da'wa, and deceipt to the infidel, so it's halal. For now. But they both appreciate that the popularity of reality TV is helping to attract a youthful audience. Mr Ali said it was crucial for the older generation to involve younger people in daily mosque activity. Many younger Muslims, particularly women, have complained that mosques are run by small cliques of men from distinct clans or families rather than by the wider community. "The transition of power between the two generations is very important. We don't want to see conflict. There has to be a smooth handover, like Gordon Brown and Tony Blair."

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Britain

UK schools get guide to Islam

2006-12-11

By Our Special Correspondent LONDON, Dec.9: A guide to Islam is being given to primary schools across Britain containing a headscarf, a prayer mat, a prayer cap, sacred Ihram clothing worn during the pilgrimage to Makkah, a poster of the Muslim prophets and a compass to locate the direction of Makkah. According to Daily Express the teaching resource, provided by the Muslim Council of Britain, is intended to provide children aged seven and 11 with information about true Islamic beliefs. The pack, described on Friday by one head teacher as a "three-foot by three-foot plastic box", also contains CDs, videos, children's books and pamphlets and model kits of a mosque and Islam's holiest site, the Ka'bah. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, of the MCB, said: "We believe education is the key to creating a vibrant and understanding society. "We want to ensure that every schoolchild has access to high quality Islamic resources in their schools." Colin Manning, head teacher of North Reddish Junior School in Stockport, which has only four Muslim pupils, said: "The future is in the hands of young people. The better they understand each other, the more secure that future will be." Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the MCB, added: "We found that schools were using books that were not accurate about Muslim traditions and beliefs so we put this pack together. "We now have over 800 schools using them."

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Britain

UK: New Head of Muslim Council - 'Trust Could be an Issue'

2006-06-06

The new leader of Britain's biggest Muslim organisation has warned of a breakdown of trust following the shooting of a man in a police raid in east London... In his first public engagement since his election as Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, Dr Bari visited residents, local businesses and police in the area. He said: "The message is the confusion, it's the frustration and to some extent anger. People want to know what exactly happened and about the intelligence - is it genuine information, is it flawed?" "These are the questions police have to answer as soon as possible." He added: "Trust could be an issue. Trust could break down if things are not clarified. "Angry people can do anything, angry people can even feel that they should take the law into their own hands so anger has to be directed into positive action." Yup, we'll remember the trust issue next time your ilk bomb a tube-train full of ornary folks. And you can guarantee that we'll have a look at taking the law into our own hands at the same time. One expected greater things after Iqbal Sacranie but sadly, no - just another moonbat with no sense of irony. Just don't ask him about gays on live radio...

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Britain

MI5 had video of Khan talking about building bombs, al-Qaeda camps

2006-05-16

Britain’s domestic spy agency failed to inform a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the presumed ringleader of last year’s bomb attacks in London and heard him talking about building a bomb, the Sunday Times reported yesterday. The newspaper claimed MI5 had a secret tape of Mohamed Sidique Khan talking about how to build the explosive device and leaving the country to avoid police detection, without citing sources. It claimed transcripts of the tape were never disclosed to the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) before it reported last Thursday on the attacks. The report noted that Khan and two of the other bombers briefly crossed the security radar but they were considered peripheral figures and not pursued. MI5 and other agencies were largely exonerated of security failings for not preventing the worst terrorist attack on British soil, leading to accusations of a “whitewash” by opposition politicians and families of victims. A total of 56 people, including Khan and his three fellow extremist accomplices, were killed in the attacks on London’s public transport network. The newspaper said it had spoken to an ISC member who admitted they had not seen transcripts of MI5’s tapes, which also included Khan talking about his plans to wage jihad - or holy war - and go to Al Qaeda training camps abroad. Instead, he reportedly said they took evidence from senior security officials and accepted their assessment that Khan was not deemed a serious risk. The unnamed committee member said that if the transcripts showed Khan had discussed bomb-making and attacking targets, they had been “seriously misled”. “If that is the case, it amounts to a scandal. I would be outraged,” he was quoted as saying. The Sunday Times said the disclosures would heighten calls for an independent public inquiry into the bombings. Meanwhile, Britain’s largest umbrella group for Islamic organisations has launched a plan to make mosques a focal point of communities to combat views that they are hotbeds of extremism. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said the London bombings last July 7 had fostered a negative image of mosques as places that require “close attention in the ‘war on terrorism’.” Announcing a drive on Saturday night to open the doors of Britain’s 1,000-plus mosques to the wider community, MCB general secretary Iqbal Sacranie said: “The tragedy of 7/7 spawned new and aggressive thinking in some quarters. These quarters contend that mosques and imams require close attention in the ‘war on terrorism’. “The perception outside the community is not very favourable. There is negative stereotyping that mosques are somehow related with criminal activity. This is totally untrue. There is no such activity taking place in the mosque.”

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Britain

Mosque image problem post-7 July

2006-05-13

The London bombings created the perception that mosques require "close attention in the war on terrorism", says the Muslim Council of Britain. A report on how attitudes towards Muslims have changed said the impression was these places of worship offer extremists a sympathetic ear. General Secretary Sir Iqbal Sacranie said it was a big challenge to change this unjustified reputation. The council discussed how to do this at a conference in Manchester. "In Britain, mosques have enjoyed the same autonomy as other places of worship. "However, the tragedy of [7 July] spawned new and aggressive thinking in some quarters. These quarters contend that mosques and imams require close attention in the 'war on terrorism'," said Sir Iqbal. "The perception outside the community is not very favourable. There is negative stereotyping that mosques are somehow related with criminal activity. This is totally untrue. There is no such activity taking place in the mosque." There are more than 1,000 mosques in the UK, and plans were under way for these to not just be a places of prayer but a focal point for the wider community. Muslim leaders gathered in Didsbury, Greater Manchester, on Saturday to endorse the new approach. The report also recommended setting up an advisory body chosen by, and accountable to, the British Muslim community. Sir Iqbal added that government measures, such as the consultation floated on the closure of places of worship last year, risked alienating mosques further. Earlier this week, the council joined calls for a public inquiry into the attacks in which suicide bombers killed 52 and injured more than 700.

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Europe

More Protests In Trafalgar Square

2006-02-27

This Saturday, about 2,000 protesters gathered in Trafalgar Square. The march, which was planned several weeks in advance, was intended as a "stop the war" protest and followed protests the previous two Saturdays against the Danish cartoons. However, following the Askari shrine bombing, the theme of the protests was overwhelmingly focussed against Sunni based terrorism. The march started from Hyde Park, proceeded along Picadilly, into Trafalgar Square. Unlike previous weeks, at least half of the protesters were female and mostly Shia Muslims. Although there was a slight variation in the speeches given by the various Imams, the overriding consensus was that Sunni extremists were undoubtedly responsible for the attacks, with the main target of ire being the Wahhabi ideology which drives them, which suggested an implicit although unvoiced condemnation of the Saudi regime which promote its proliferation. Famous moderate Sir Iqbal Sacranie of the MCB appeared extremely nervous whilst giving his speech to a hostile crowd amid chants of "Death to Wahhabis & Takfiris" and chants eulogising Hussein and the Shia Imams. Whilst condemning the attacks as against Islam, he suggested that "Allah knows best the identity of the attackers." Yup - he knows everyfink, does Al. He also appealed for unity and peaceful dialogue between the two sects. Imam Sayyid Mussawi, whilst following the predominantly anti-Wahhabist stance, said that the Wahhabis were actually Joooos, and not to forget that Joooos were behind everything. Another point that he made was that as UK/US were the occupying forces, they held responsibility for the security failures and should therefore leave Iraq, to allow the people to defend their sacred right to "Kill them wherever you find them" themselves. Although there were one or two slogans against the cartoons, the majority of people in attendance were against the politicisation of the cartoon issue. Most of the posters depicted scenes of the destruction of the Askari mosque. There were a number of banners from the AhlulBayt society of London University. The chanted slogans were "Death to Wahhabism/Takfirism/Bin Laden/Zarqawi." Slightly disappointed not to make the shortlist...

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Britain

Poll: 40% of Muslims want sharia law in UK

2006-02-19

Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today. The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity. Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain. What they say and what they do is different. Last night, Sadiq Khan, the Labour MP involved with the official task force set up after the July attacks, said the findings were "alarming". He added: "Vast numbers of Muslims feel disengaged and alienated from mainstream British society." Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "This poll confirms the widespread opposition among British Muslims to the so-called war on terror." The most startling finding is the high level of support for applying sharia law in "predom-inantly Muslim" areas of Britain. Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were "right". Half of the 500 people surveyed said relations between white Britons and Muslims were getting worse. Only just over half thought the conviction of the cleric Abu Hamza for incitement to murder and race hatred was fair. Mr Khan, the MP for Tooting, said: "We must redouble our efforts to bring Muslims on board with the mainstream community. For all the efforts made since last July, things do not have appear to have got better." He agreed with Sir Iqbal that the poll showed Muslims still had a "big gripe" about foreign policy, particularly over the war on terror and Iraq. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "It shows we have a long way to go to win the battle of ideas within some parts of the Muslim community and why it is absolutely vital that we reinforce the voice of moderate Islam wherever possible." Whatever that is. A spokesman for Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said: "It is critically important to ensure that Muslims, and all faiths, feel part of modern British society. Today's survey indicates we still have a long way to go [but] we are committed to working with all faiths to ensure we achieve that end." It's also important that Muslims, and all faiths, have loyalty to Britain. It's a two-way street: you can't be part of modern British society if you don't wish to be.

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Britain

Britain Won't Target Extremist Mosques

2005-12-16

The British government Thursday dropped a key part of the anti-terrorism legislation proposed after the deadly July 7 suicide bombings on London's transit system, abandoning its effort to let police shut down extremist mosques. "Yasss. We're very content merely pulling an occasional handful of leaves from the tree of terrorism. Actually digging up the roots would get dirt all over the carpets." The plan, introduced a month after four suspected suicide bombers killed 52 bus and Underground passengers, ... before the national attention span ran out... had been criticized by police and religious organizations. And now George Michael is engaged and that's ever so much more important... Home Secretary Charles Clarke said in a written statement to the House of Commons that he was dropping the proposal "although we will keep the matter under review." "Next time somebody blows up the transit system, by golly, they're really gonna get it!" The proposal would have given police powers to temporarily close places of worship being used by extremists. The trustee or owner would then be served with an order to halt radical activity. The Home Office spokesman said 66 people and organizations had responded to a consultation on the proposal, and most were opposed. Of course they're opposed! They're the ones that would have been closed down! Do we have any aspirin? We're fresh out of aspirin, but I did find this Cluebat™ in the closet... The Association of Chief Police Officers also opposed the idea, saying it risked alienating ordinary Muslims and driving extremism underground. "We much prefer to have the Bad Guyz out where we can see them, even if they're throwing things at us!" "Have you considered putting them in jail?" "Oh, that'd just drive the rest of them underground and we'd never catch them." "But if you caught them, what would you do with them?" "Well, we wouldn't put them in jail!" The Rev. Graham Sparkes of the Baptist Union of Great Britain said Baptists had suffered persecution and imprisonment in the past in their efforts to "secure control over what was preached, where it could be preached, and who could preach." I'm not aware of any transit systems ever blown up by Baptists. Did I miss something? "We would be very sensitive toward any proposals that put these hard won freedoms under threat," Sparkes said in a statement to the government. Don't preach jihad in your Baptistries and you'll be fine... Sir Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, said mosques were being branded wrongly "as incubators of violent extremism, while the social reality is that they serve as centers of moderation. The bombers were indoctrinated by a subculture outside the mosque." Two words, Sir Icky: Finsbury Park. The proposal had been part of the government's anti-terrorist proposals introduced after the July 7 transit attacks in London, in which four suspected suicide bombers killed 52 bus and Underground passengers.

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Britain

UK approves extradiction of Ahmad

2005-11-16

British officials ordered a British computer specialist Babar Ahmad extradited to Connecticut to face terrorism charges Wednesday, a decision announced after sixth months of deliberation. Connecticut investigators say Ahmad ran several Web sites, including Azzam.com, which investigators say was used to recruit and raise money for the al-Qaida network, Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime and Chechen rebels. A judge ruled May 17 that the 31-year-old could be sent to the United States to face charges of supporting terrorism, conspiring to kill Americans and running a Web site used to fund terrorists. But the extradition had to be approved by Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Britain's top law-and-order official, who made his decision Wednesday. "We are very pleased with the home secretary's decision, which represents yet another important step in our efforts to bring Babar Ahmad to justice," said U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor, Connecticut's top federal prosecutor. "We will continue to work closely with our counterparts in London to secure his extradition." Ahmad's arrest last year capped a multiyear investigation by Connecticut's anti-terrorism team. Investigators said Ahmad had obtained classified documents discussing a U.S. Navy fleet's vulnerability to attack. Ahmad's family said it would appeal Wednesday's decision, setting up a High Court challenge to contentious new rules that allow American authorities to seek extradition without producing evidence of a crime. The case is proceeding under new extradition rules that lessen the burden of proof in some cases, allowing certain countries — including the United States — to provide "information" rather than evidence that a crime has been committed. Some lawyers and civil libertarians are alarmed by the "fast-track" procedures, which are not reciprocal because the U.S. Senate has not yet ratified the extradition treaty. A petition calling for Ahmad to remain in Britain gathered thousands of signatures. Ahmad's lawyers have 14 days to appeal. They said if evidence against him existed he would have been charged in Britain. British police arrested Ahmad on suspicion of terrorism offenses in December 2003, but released him a week later without charge. "If our government has any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Babar Ahmad, then he should be charged in this country and put on trial here," said Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain. In a statement posted on the Web site www.freebabarahmad.com, Ahmad said Clarke's decision "should only come as a surprise to those who thought that there was still justice for Muslims in Britain." The lawmaker for Ahmad's home district in south London, Sadiq Khan, also said he should face trial in Britain. "Mr. Ahmad's family and the local community are extremely concerned that he will not be subject to a fair trial in the United States," Khan said. In May, Judge Timothy Workman allowed extradition after receiving assurances from U.S. authorities that they would not seek the death penalty or declare Ahmad an "enemy combatant," a category applied to detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. British law forbids the extradition of suspects who could face capital punishment. Workman called the extradition bid "a difficult and troubling case," and said it raised complicated issues that the High Court should explore. Before the new rules were introduced, several high-profile U.S. extradition bids fizzled out when authorities were unable to back up their charges of terrorism with evidence. In April 2002, Workman dismissed a U.S. extradition bid against Algerian pilot Lotfi Raissi, who was arrested shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and accused of being a lead trainer for the suicide hijackers. Workman ruled that the United States had offered no evidence to link Raissi to terrorism. The same year, U.S. authorities failed in a bid to extradite Egyptian Yasser el-Sirri, who allegedly funded terrorist activities targeting the United States, after the British government decided there was not enough evidence.

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Britain

Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’

2005-11-13

Al-Qaeda has threatened the Queen by naming her as “one of the severest enemies of Islam” in a video message to justify the July bombings in London. The warning has been passed by MI5 to the Queen’s protection team after it obtained the unexpurgated version of a video issued by Al-Qaeda after the 7/7 attacks. Parts of it were broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite channel. In the video, Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command to Osama Bin Laden, targets the Queen as ultimately responsible for Britain’s “crusader laws” and denounces her as an enemy of Muslims. A senior Whitehall official said: “MI5 is aware that there are some pieces of that video that have not been aired. They are aware of the bit of al- Zawahiri talking about the Queen and they have notified the relevant authorities.” The Sunday Times has obtained the full 27-minute video, which is circulating on secure jihadist websites in the Middle East used to recruit and inflame prospective terrorists. In Britain it has been posted by Muhammad al-Massari, the London-based Saudi extremist, on his website Tajdeed. It also contains inflammatory material from Mohammad Sidique Khan, ringleader of the London bombings which killed 52 commuters. He is urging Muslims to take part in jihad and seek martyrdom. Khan, 30, incites British Muslims to ignore the moderate Islamic leaders who want integration with British society. “Our so-called scholars of today,” he said, “are content with their Toyotas and semi-detached houses” in their desire for integration. The message is believed to be the first of its kind in which a British suicide bomber calls on fellow UK Muslims to follow his example. The attack by al-Zawahiri prompted intelligence officers to alert Buckingham Palace that the Queen had become a specific target of Al-Qaeda. Her security had already been upgraded after September 11, 2001. In the video al-Zawahiri not only labels the Queen as one of Islam’s “severest enemies” but also sends a warning shot to British Islamic leaders who “work for the pleasure of Elizabeth, the head of the Church of England”. He said those who followed her were saying: “We are British citizens, subject to Britain’s crusader laws, and we are proud of our submission . . . to Elizabeth, head of the Church of England.” In a possible reference to the role of the Muslim Council of Britain, which had issued instructions to mosques to inform on potential terrorists, he criticised “those who issue fatwas, according to the school of thought of the head of the Church of England”. In the previously unseen footage, Khan, from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, said: “It is very clear, brothers and sisters, that the path of jihad and the desire for martyrdom is embedded in the holy prophet and his beloved companions. By preparing ourselves for this kind of work, we are guaranteeing ourselves for paradise and gaining the pleasure of Allah. And by turning our back on this work, we are guaranteeing ourselves humiliation and the anger of Allah. Jihad is an obligation on every single one of us, men and women.” Khan’s message was condemned by Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the Muslim Council’s secretary-general, as a “perverse interpretation of Islam”. “The victims of Sidique Khan were innocent people . . . It’s clearly inciteful. It’s trying to incite people to commit murder,” he said. It looks like the Islamists, Ayman in particular, are confusing Liz' symbolic position with something of substance. I'd consider the Church of England to be one of the lesser challenges al-Qaeda is facing, since it's essentially a rudderless organization of no real import. Gone are the days when church membership and attendance were required. Equally gone are the days when Anglican churchmen constituted an intellectual force. The Queen is actually pretty symbolic of the church: pretty old, mostly out of touch but inoffensive to most. She's really no Richard the Lionhearted, any more than the current Archdruid of Canterbury resembles Thomas Cranmer. The Lions of Islam™, of course, would consider the Queen a most desirable target, since she's unlikely to be packing heat. The Brits, on the other hand, despite the widespread rolling of the eyes at the royal family, might take her assassination personally. The Muslims might want to read up one what Edward I did to the Jews.

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