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Radical cleric sparks fury in Australia

1/18/2007, 2:51 p.m. ET
By MERAIAH FOLEY
The Associated Press

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — A radical Australian cleric drew widespread condemnation Thursday over a series of videos in which he encourages children to become martyrs for Islam and ridicules Jews as pigs.

Sheik Feiz Mohammed, head of the Global Islamic Youth Center in western Sydney, made the remarks on a series of video lectures for sale in Australia and overseas.

"We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam," the Australian-born cleric said in one video broadcast on Australian television.

The lectures were denounced as offensive by Australian government leaders and as not helpful by the head of the Islamic Friendship Association. The chief of the opposition Labor Party called them an incitement to terrorism.

In one video, the cleric said many parents were stopping their children from attending Islamic lessons for fear that they "might create a place in their hearts, the love, just a bit of love, of sacrificing their lives for Allah."

"Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid," or holy warrior, he added. "Put in their soft, tender hearts the zeal of jihad and a love of martyrdom.".

He also ridicules Jews as pigs, snorting and saying they will go to hell.......[MORE]

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-1/1169150341242740.xml&storylist=international

Chemical Reactions Taught

Updated: 20:11, Thursday January 18, 2007

One of the alleged July 21 bombers studied chemistry at college, where he would have been taught about rates of reaction for substances, their trial has heard.

Yassin Omar, who is accused with five others of trying to target London's transport network, took a GNVQ intermediate course from 1998 to 1999.

Omar would have learnt how different factors, such as temperature, could increase the chemical rate of reaction of substances, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

After the alleged failed bomb attacks in July 2005, notes from a GNVQ intermediate chemistry course were found at Omar's home - the alleged "bomb factory" in New Southgate, north London, it was said.

They included a description of the components of fertiliser and the ionic bonding of magnesium oxide, and made references to other substances including silver nitrate and barium chloride.

"In the name of Allah" was also written on one of the pages, the jury heard.

The six accused Omar's Enfield College chemistry teacher, Ann Obatomi, told the southeast London court that when he took the course, the syllabus included "looking at the effects of temperature, the use of catalysts, to increase the rate of reaction".

Mrs Obatomi said hydrogen peroxide could be used to investigate rates, and it was used in a very diluted form in the college laboratory.

Omar took four hours of chemistry a week but at the end of the academic year, in summer 1999, his attendance tailed off and he failed the course, it was said.

Earlier, the prosecution said it was unclear if the suspects' bombs failed to detonate because they had been manufactured incorrectly or because of hot weather on July 21 affecting the chemicals.

Omar, 26, Muktar Said Ibrahim, 28, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, Hussain Osman, 28, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, and Adel Yahya, 24, all deny charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life. The trial continues.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,70131-13563579,00.html?f=rss