Replies

Thanks for the ping. Recape of updates from EUrabia (showing that this view is supported by other muslim leaders around the world):

Briton backs imam in 'uncovered meat' row
ONE of Britain’s most senior Muslims has defended as “a great scholar” the Australian imam who likened scantily clad women to uncovered meat that draws predators.
Abduljalil Sajid, a senior figure in the Muslim Council of Britain, offered support for Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali’s views, saying that “loose women like prostitutes” encouraged men to be immoral. Dr Sajid, visiting Australia, said that Sheikh al-Hilali was attacking immodesty and loose dress, or “standing in the streets, inviting men to do these bad acts”.
Although the Australian cleric did not use the word prostitute, but appeared to be attacking women wearing revealing clothes, Dr Sajid said that the sermon had been taken out of context. Referring to the thrust of the Sheikh’s argument, he said: “So what is wrong in it? Who will object to that?” Dr Sajid, who is on a speaking tour, met the controversial Sheikh at his Sydney mosque yesterday...
...After meeting him yesterday, Dr Sajid said: “As far as I am concerned he is a great scholar and he has a great knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence....”

Background on the so called moderate "Muslim Council of Britain" -

MCB's Inayat Bunglawala Defends Islamic Supremacism

MCB's Jew hatin', London suicide bomber praisin', Bin Laden (the "freedom fighter") lovin', Inayat Bunglawala gets Brit Govt "top job fighting extremism."

MCB's Bunglawala: Do As We Say, And Nobody Gets Hurt

Downing Street's Favorite – The Muslim Council of Britain - by Daniel Pipes

And who is this Mohammed Omran?

Documents allege Al Qaeda contact with Australians
Reporter: Rafael Epstein

KERRY O'BRIEN: Whatever interpretation is placed on the verdict and sentence handed down to Abu Bakar Bashir last night, his 4-year jail term is unlikely to be seen as a deterrent to terrorist organisations.

As the Marriott hotel bombing in Jakarta showed, terrorism remains a very real threat in this region.

The 7:30 Report has obtained court documents alleging telephone contact between two Australian-Muslim leaders and men in Europe described by authorities as senior Al Qaeda leaders.

The documents, including telephone intercepts, are the most detailed public evidence that allege contacts between Australians and the global terror network.

Melbourne spiritual leader Sheik Mohammed Omran, and Sydney Muslim youth leader Bilaal Khazaal, are linked by the documents with Spain's top Al Qaeda suspect, Abu Dahdah, who is accused of substantial role in the September 11 attacks.

The ABC has also learned that both men are persons of interest for the Australian Federal Police.

And the AFP has confirmed they have 70 ongoing investigations into Australians in relation to terrorism.

One of the Australian men denies any involvement in terror activities and the other would not comment.

But the AFP say they are aware of communications between the Spanish Al Qaeda chief and the two Australian men.

Rafael Epstein reports.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Sheik Mohammed Omran is the head of a group that is a minority fundamentalist group within Australia's Muslim community.

Originally from Jordan, he's been here for more than 18 years.

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: I know the Australians.

If the media doesn't put so many rubbish things in their hearts, they are the most beautiful kind people.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Every Friday he preaches at this roughly furnished warehouse in inner Melbourne.

Now his name has been linked to Spain's top Al Qaeda suspect.

You know that the implication from the court documents is that you are effectively a member of Al Qaeda?

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: That's great!

No, I don't know that.

And I don't believe I am.

Don't misunderstand me, but, really, I am what I am.

NEIL FERGUS, INTELLIGENCE CONSULTANT: There is no theological basis, either in these documents or in other material to justify the type of contact that we've seen.

So there are some serious question marks about why Sheik Mohammed Omran has had the Al Qaeda contacts.

Given his contact with Abu Dahdah and other Al Qaeda suspects, including a man in London, it is of grave concern to Australia and Australian security.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: According to telephone intercepts tendered in a Spanish court, Sheik Mohammed Omran is linked to a man named Abu Dahdah.

A Spanish court ordered his detention after presenting evidence that he twice met September 11 ring leader Mohammed Atar.

And that he has extensive links with Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia and extremist groups in Britain.

Abu Dahdah's diary is full of the names of men either wanted for terrorist activities or who are already being held on terror-related charges.

Court documents obtained by the 7:30 Report show Abu Dahdah made calls to Sheik Mohammed Omran regularly, that his name appeared often in Abu Dahdah's diary and that the relationship may have extended to face to face meetings.

In a conversation with a man who is now in custody in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, Abu Dahdah is reported saying, "Abu Aman was meant to see him a week ago.

That Abu Aman was going to see him in Spain in transit to Singapore."

But Sheik Mohammed Omran says he's never spoken or heard of Abu Dahdah.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Spanish telephone intercepts say he spoke and called you regularly.

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: If this happened, then the Australian Government is not a stupid Government, they would come and ask me about that.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Well, I've been told that the Australian Federal Police are aware of those communications.

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Rubbish.

This is not true.

I am assure you if this happen, I will be the first to know about it from the Australian Government.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Jean Charles Brisard prepared a report for the UN Security Council on Al Qaeda funding and has also advised the French Government on terror groups.

After studying thousands of pages of the Spanish court documents, he brushes off Sheik Mohammed Omran's denials.

JEAN CHARLES BRISARD, TERRORISM INVESTIGATOR: His doctrine and religious beliefs are close to those of Abu Dahdah and others who make the core religious beliefs of Al Qaeda members.

I don't know if himself he is in close contact with Al Qaeda itself.

What I know for sure is that the organisation presides over or is chairman there in Australia voluntarily, again, sell propaganda coming from other entities, clearly directly related to Al Qaeda.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: But Sheik Mohammed Omran does admit a close relationship with another man mentioned in the court documents.

Have you heard of a man called Sheikh Homad.

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Yes, I know him.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Have you ever spoken to him?

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Yes.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: He is in jail at the moment.

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Of course I know that.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Abu Qatada is the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda in Europe, according to the British Government in May, the British said he had extensive contacts with senior terrorists worldwide.

Police found 18 videotapes of his sermons in a German apartment used by some of the September 11 hijackers.

He's in custody in Britain.

One organisation he's heavily involved with is the Salafist group for call and combat.

It's been listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian Government.

You could be breaking Australian law by trying to contact him or his associates.

Did you know that?

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: First, Abu Qatada he is my friend before that and still my friend until today.

And until maybe the day we meet.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: You're still in contact with him?

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: No, he's in jail.

How can you contact someone in jail?

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: With letters.

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: Nothing reaches him anyhow and I don't.

What I am saying is he was my friend and he came and visited Australia.

Maybe you don't know that.

So he came and visited us here by the permission of our Government here.

So if anyone to blame, we should blame the Australian Government first for letting him in here.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Jean Charles Brisard says of the many men listed in the Spanish court documents, Sheik Mohammed Omran is worth attention because of the influence he has over his followers.

JEAN CHARLES BRISARD: His role and responsibility as far as the doctrine is involved is probably higher than anybody else.

Again, he is part of that stage of the life of the evolution of an extremist Muslim, where you come from an ideology to go to the jihad front.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The Spanish court documents also point to Abu Dahdah's other alleged Australian connection, Bilal Khazaal, who is the leader of Sydney's Islamic youth movement.

In June, 'Four Corners' reported Khazaal was the main focus of last year's CIA report on Al Qaeda's presence in Australia.

Bilal Khazaal did not want to speak to the 7:30 Report, but the Spanish telephone transcripts appear to show for the first time regular contacts between Khazaal and Abu Dahdah.

The court says they show Khazaal contacted Dahdah in 2001, seeking his help to gain entry into Europe for an alleged Al Qaeda operative.

Abu Dahdah then took care of this individual during his stay in Spain.

JEAN CHARLES BRISARD: The Spanish police and other services around the world have strong evidence that Bilal Khazaal has recruited people to train in Osama bin Laden-controlled training camps around the world in Kashmir and in Afghanistan.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: The 7:30 Report is not suggesting that the two Australian Muslim leaders have done anything illegal and we're not suggesting that they're active members of a terror organisation.

But the Spanish court documents do detail more than casual contact between the two Australian men and the men in custody in Europe who are described as senior Al Qaeda leaders, although we don't know the detail of those contacts.

Such contacts, raising funds, and recruiting people for those groups, did not become illegal acts until after September 11, 2001, and after the alleged acts occurred.

The Australian Federal Police have confirmed to the 7:30 Report they're aware of the communications between the Australian men and the Spanish suspect.

The AFP has also confirmed they have 65 ongoing investigations into people potentially involved in terrorist activity.

That's one reason the head of intelligence for the Sydney Olympics, Neil Fergus, believes Khazaal and Omran will be high on the list of people ASIO will want to talk to under new anti-terror laws.

NEIL FERGUS: Individuals with that degree of contact and proven members of Al Qaeda, you would imagine that they would be high on the list to be the subject of the inquisitorial powers which have been enacted in the recent legislation.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: For now, Sheik Mohammed Omran says there's nothing wrong with his friendship with the man in British custody, Abu Qatada.

SHEIK MOHAMMED OMRAN: I don't believe that anyone, whatsoever, any law can stop you making a personal friendship with anyone and I don't think Australia goes to that low to stop you making a friendship with anyone.

Even Osama bin Laden himself.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2003/s938401.htm

'Holy war' books spark legal threat By Clay Lucas July 14, 2005

Mohammed Omran

Photo: John Donegan

A Melbourne Jewish group says it will use Victoria's anti-vilification laws unless a Brunswick group stops selling books that it says call for a "holy war".

"This shop sells books that are inciting hatred," Jewish Community Council of Victoria president Michael Lipshutz said. "The hatred in these books and some of the things they recommend are pretty extreme."

A small bookshop at Brunswick's Ahl Sunnah wal Jamaah Association, run by controversial Sheikh Mohammed Omran, sells books that the Jewish council says are offensive.

Of chief concern, said the council, was Al Wala' wa'l Bara' (Love and Hate for Allah's Sake), by Muhammad Saeed al-Qahtani. It describes all non-Muslims as "the allies of Satan" who should be "trampled underfoot".

"It is either Islam or death," says one chapter detailing why Muslims must not befriend Jews, Christians or non-Muslims.

"If it becomes clear that someone is at odds with Islam, then fight him. The (Jew or Christian) who insults the Prophet should be killed."

Jewish and Islamic groups met yesterday to discuss how they could avoid legal action.

The Jewish council says it will go to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to stop the centre selling the books.

Islamic Council of Victoria president Waleed Aly said he would try to help resolve the dispute. But Sheikh Omran's Brunswick group was not aligned with the Islamic Council, he added.

"The matter doesn't directly concern us because the bookshop is not in any way linked to us. (This is) a marginal organisation and a marginal bookshop."

A spokesman for the bookstore, who asked not to be named, said the shop would consider not stocking the books "if truly they are offensive".

But complaints about the books had been "badly taken out of context", he said. "If a complaint is valid, then we will take the books out."

Last December, in the first case under Victoria's controversial 2001 Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal upheld a complaint from the Islamic Council of Victoria.

It said Muslims were vilified by Christian group Catch the Fire Ministries, which suggested the Koran promoted killing, that only terrorists were true Muslims and that Muslims wanted to rule Australia.

On Monday, Sheikh Omran denied al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or any Muslim groups were involved in last week's bombings in London, or the September 11 attacks on the United States. http://www.theage.com.au/news/

and who is Bilal Khazal? (Former Qantas baggage handler.)

Brothers guilty in Lebanon stay free here
By Cosima Marriner
December 23, 2003

The Australian Government admitted yesterday it was powerless to extradite two Sydney brothers convicted of terrorist offences in Lebanon, until asked by the Lebanese authorities.

Beirut's Military Court found Bilal and Maher Khazal guilty at the weekend of donating $2000 to an Islamic group which orchestrated a string of bomb attacks in Lebanon.

Despite being sentenced in absentia to 10 years' hard labour, the Khazal brothers remain free in Australia because the Lebanese Government has not sought their return.

Both men are Australian citizens and live in Sydney's west. Bilal Khazal runs the Islamic Youth Movement here.

The Prime Minister, John Howard, confirmed Australia had yet to receive a request to return the two men to Lebanon. "We are ready to extradite them if an extradition request is received," he said yesterday.

But he admitted Australia could not do anything until that time. "You can't send people back to a country unless the country asks for them."

The brothers' lawyer, Adam Houda, said his clients would vigorously oppose any attempt to extradite them to Lebanon.

"We will fight it all the way even if it means going to the High Court," Mr Houda said. "We're not taking the convictions seriously; conviction, sentence - all in their absence, in a military court with no rules of evidence.

"These courts don't pay any regard to the rules of evidence or procedure. It's a kangaroo court."

Mr Houda said evidence heard in the military court had been favourable to the brothers. Mohammed Kaaki, who has been sentenced to 20 years for organising the bombing of a Beirut McDonald's in April, gave evidence he received money from Bilal Khazal, but for Lebanese charities.

"That evidence was corroborated by Kaaki's mother," Mr Houda said.

Mr Houda called Mr Howard a hypocrite for his willingness to co-operate with Lebanon's judicial system.

"John Howard is fully aware how these military tribunals operate," he said. "Instead of . . . dismissing any attempt of an extradition, he's still quite willing and comfortable subjecting a citizen of Australia to that kind of draconian tribunal."

Lebanon's embassy in Canberra told the Herald yesterday it was waiting to hear from its government whether it intended to seek the brothers' return.

Both ASIO and the Australian Federal Police have had Bilal Khazal under surveillance for some time. A former Qantas baggage handler, he is being investigated for alleged links to al-Qaeda. His passport was confiscated last year.

The Justice Minister, Chris Ellison, said Australia had been in discussions with the Lebanese authorities about the Khazal brothers well before Saturday's verdict.

The brothers were accused of giving money to a militant Muslim group called Khaliyat Trablus, based in the northern city of Tripoli. This group allegedly bombed US businesses in Lebanon. The court found 27 people guilty of staging the attacks

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003

IIRC this fat ugly germ is currently under house-arrest.

Jihad text gave rules for killers, court told By Marian Wilkinson June 10, 2005

Accused author … Bilal Khazal, left, is accompanied by his lawyers to his committal hearing at Central Local Court yesterday. Photo: Kate Geraghty

A former Qantas baggage handler who compiled a book outlining "short and wise" rules for fighting jihad on his computer in suburban Lakemba dedicated it to the "martyrs of Islam".

Yesterday the bizarre and often violent text was handed over to Sydney Central Local Court, where its 35-year-old editor, Bilal Khazal, faced a charge of making documents likely to facilitate terrorist acts.

Dressed in a long navy dish-dasha dress shirt, white prayer cap, socks and sandals, the portly Khazal sat impassively as prosecutor Geoffrey Bellew told the court that almost a third of the offending book was directed to the topic of assassination, including a list of attributes needed to be part of an assassination team - "wit and a quick mind", "a terrorist psychology" and "high physical fitness".

The book concluded with praise for al-Qaeda's "impressive success of the conquest of New York" on September 11, 2001.

Defence lawyers for Khazal argued the Lebanese-born father of two had merely compiled the book from documents taken from the internet. But, according to the prosecutor, Khazal wrote the introduction to "Provisions on the Rules of Jihad", where he says he was asked to prepare it by "brothers working to support this religion".

Using a pseudonym, Abu Mohamed Attawheedy, Khazal apologises in the introduction for the poor job on the text, saying it was done in a few days, but "better haste than never".

The book was posted on a Jihadist website from September 2003 to May 2004.

The wide-ranging chapter on assassination, attributed to numerous scholars, debates not only setting up hit squads but explains how mujahideen fighters in Palestine and elsewhere can protect themselves against being hit by the CIA and Mossad.

Among the assassination techniques used by Western intelligence, the book says, are letter bombs, snipers, car bombs and "cake throwing", which it adds, "is well known in the West".

Jihadists are warned to be alert to couples pretending to be joking before attacking the target with cakes. "This could lead to his eyes, nose and mouth being plugged and [he] loses the ability to breathe. Few would suspect the fatal consequences."

But in another section it includes a checklist for jihadist assassins, from getting the budgeting and transport organised, to checking wiring and receivers before attempting to use time-bombs.

Less clear from the text is who are the targets of the jihadist assassins. While the political and military leaders from the West are suggested, along with infidels in Arab countries, including Jews, Christians and Arabs, at times the book insists that "a legal fatwa" must be obtained for assassinations.

Counsel for Khazal, Murugan Thangaraj, argued the book did not instruct people to commit terrorist acts and was only a book about terrorism.

"This document does not direct any specific act to any specific person and is really a general document," Mr Thangaraj said.

He also objected to police laying a second charge against Khazal yesterday of inciting another person to commit a terrorist act. The charge came a year after Khazal's arrest, just as his committal hearing was to start. The hearing continues today.

http://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/winep/policy_2003/2003_791/

New Evidence of Wider Threats from Lebanon's Asbat al-Ansar

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

The Australian Connection

One of the linchpins that ties al-Qaeda, Asbat al-Ansar, and the Tripoli Cell together is Bilal Khazal, an Australian citizen of Lebanese origin. Also known as Abu Suhaib, Khazal is head of Australia's "Islamic Youth Movement" (Ash-Shabab al-Islami), a small but influential group of perhaps 150 members that is suspected of recruiting Islamic radicals. Since 1994, the organization has published a radical Salafist magazine called Nidaa ul-Islam (call of Islam).

According to the Lebanon Daily Star and al-Hayat, Khazal is also a direct financier of Asbat and other radical factions inside Ein al-Hilweh. For example, one member of the Tripoli Cell told a Beirut military court last week that the cell's leader, Mohammed Ka'aki, received at least $1,800 from Khazal. Recent Australian press reports indicate that Khazal has been friends with Ka'aki since the late 1990s, and that Khazal's brother, Maher, met with Ka'aki during the same period to discuss financing for terrorist operations in Lebanon. Beirut issued a warrant for Khazal's arrest in June 2003.

Khazal is known to have other ties to al-Qaeda. Australian authorities have been suspicious of his activities for nearly five years. He is thought to be the organizer of an illegal weapons training camp uncovered in Australia in August 2000. According to the Lebanese daily an-Nahar, authorities searched his home just before the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, and in 2001, authorities confiscated his passport based on suspicions that he was linked to al-Qaeda. Australian authorities now indicate that Khazal is closely linked to Mahmoud Habib, an Australian national currently held at Guantanamo Bay.

According to a 2002 CIA document, "the al-Qaeda leadership has allegedly delegated responsibility" to Khazal. The document cited uncorroborated intelligence that he was planning attacks against U.S. targets in the Philippines and Venezuela. The document also claimed that Khazal "was in Afghanistan in 1998, where he was affiliated with Ayman al-Zawahiri and Usama bin Laden." Other reports suggest that Khazal has met repeatedly with Abu Qatada, a London-based radical cleric who was initially detained under Britain's antiterrorism laws and who now faces extradition to Spain after formal charges were placed against him in September for allegedly participating in al-Qaeda.

Keating stopped sheik's expulsion
Brad Norington
October 28, 2006
THE apology from the sheik was profuse. He had verbally attacked women, endorsed suicide bombings in Lebanon and declared that Jews were plotting world domination.
"The two cheapest things in Australia are the flesh of a woman and the meat of a pig," he said.

Taj Din al-Hilali accepted his words were offensive. "I genuinely believe that I have changed for the better," he insisted.

Nothing, it seems, has changed in the last 20 years. The nation's most senior Muslim cleric was not responding to public damnation over his Ramadan sermon last month in which he blamed women for inciting rape and likened them to abandoned "meat".

Chris Hurford, immigration minister in the Hawke Labor government, tried in 1986 to have him deported after Hilali had overstayed a tourist visa in 1982 and settled in Sydney.

Hurford wanted the sheik sent home to Egypt because his reported utterances were dividing the Muslim community.

But Hilali had two powerful Labor supporters on his side - Paul Keating and Leo McLeay - who would ultimately help him win his quest for permanent residency.

Keating, then federal treasurer, and McLeay, an influential backbencher from his party's Right faction, made no bones about their belief that Hilali should stay and lobbied on his behalf.

They were under pressure from the growing local Muslim community in their neighbouring western Sydney seats of Blaxland and Grayndler.

The Lakemba mosque where Hilali was the spiritual leader was in McLeay's electorate.

"It was a local political issue for people who lived in the electorate," said one observer.

"They took the philosophical view that if people in this religious group wanted Hilali to be their spiritual leader, why should they say no?"

But Hurford and other players close to the action take a different view.

They believe that Hilali was ultimately granted permanent residency by the Labor government in 1990 - in a decision made by Keating himself as acting prime minister while Bob Hawke was away - because the decision could help Labor in federal and state politics...

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20658333-601,00.html

Proving once again, the Left will sell its soul and your country for a vote!