Free Republic

The number of Islamic extremist security suspects in Britain has increased by 50 percent since the deadly suicide bombings in London last year, The Observer newspaper said on Sunday. A senior intelligence source at the country’s domestic spy agency MI5 was quoted as saying that they were targeting 800 such suspects before the bombings on July 7 last year, but that figure now stood at 1,200. In September 2001, the number of people deemed a “risk to national security” was 250, the newspaper said. The unnamed MI5 source did not give a reason for the apparent rise in radicalisation but...

Note: Photos included. SNIPPET: "Boys as young as five can barely hold up the machine guns and pistols in their hands as they take aim at imaginary targets in the Pakistan desert. But this is no sick game, it is their first step along the way to becoming al-Qaeda terrorists as they are taught about military combat and how to launch suicide missions. At hidden camps terrorist chiefs also use toys to teach the boys how they can blow up buildings and mount roadside bomb attacks. One chilling image from a video filmed inside one camp shows children, barely old...

SNIPPET: "Over the past few weeks, in the aftermath of the Anwar al-Awlaki’s rise to mainstream media prominence, I’ve been asked by several journalists to identify and discuss the role of the influential ‘online celebrity shaykhs.’ At the top of my list of Western jihadist clerics has been a guy known as Shaykh Abdullah al-Faisal. Well, turns out, he’s not just at the top of my list. This Jamaican-born fire-breathing jihadist cleric whose spent time in UK prison for incitement to terrorism was just arrested in Mombasa, Kenya for preaching in Kenyan mosques."

A London-based Muslim cleric was arrested by anti-terrorist officers on Monday amid allegations that he urged Muslims to kill Jews and non-believers, police sources said. Abdullah el-Faisal, 38, was seized by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch officers in a dawn raid at his home in east London on Monday. Born in Jamaica and a convert to Islam, he had been touring Britain urging followers to kill Jews and non-believers, police said. Members of parliament had called for action to be taken against the cleric after it was reported that video tapes carrying his message were on sale in Islamic bookshops in ...

Dhiren Barot was the least likely al-Qa'eda chief imaginable, nothing like the perceived picture of a man planning to set off a dirty bomb in London and hoping to rock western society with a series of terrorist atrocities. Short, quietly spoken and smartly dressed, Barot was born a Hindu and brought up in a north London suburb by middle-class parents before becoming one of the key figures in international Islamic terrorism. Barot suggested attacking Tube trains as they passed under the Thames, 'That would cause pandemonium' Family friends told The Daily Telegraph that Barot's father was a disciplinarian who expected...

February 25, 2003 Bloodcurdling brand of hatred taken on tour of BritainBy Sam Lister POLICE stumbled upon Abdullah el-Faisal’s project to spread racial hatred around Britain by accident after apprehending a suspected rapist in Dorset. When officers arrested the man in a West Country lay-by in December 2001, a routine search of his car uncovered two tapes, labelled Jihad and Rules of Jihad. After listening to the tapes, in which el-Faisal was heard urging audiences to kill Western unbelievers, anti-terrorism detectives began investigating the cleric in connection with British links to al-Qaeda terrorists. Two months later, The Times disclosed the...

The imam who twisted his faith to preach race hatred, murder and violence By Cahal Milmo 25 February 2003 His style was that of a celebrity lecturer, spreading "enlightenment" in a rich baritone with the help of jokes and references to pop stars as he addressed rapt audiences the length of Britain. News of the arrival of the extremist Muslim cleric Abdullah el-Faisal would spread by word of mouth, and he attracted crowds of up to 150 people at a time. But beneath his jocular manner lay a philosophy skewed by hatred of "kuffars", or unbelievers, and shared by a...