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Terror watch on Mecca pilgrims (UK)
January 21, 2007

The intelligence agencies are monitoring every Muslim who travels from Britain to Mecca on pilgrimage in a wider effort to piece together intelligence on suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist activity.

A senior Whitehall official has disclosed that the operation targeting trips to the holy city in Saudi Arabia by more than 100,000 British Muslims is part of a trawl by MI5 and MI6 for information about movements of suspected terrorists. It follows evidence that British Islamic terrorists have visited the city before carrying out attacks in Britain and abroad.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2558373,00.html

Muslims in police will rise up, Bakri insists (UK)
21/01/2007

Moderate British Muslims in the police, Armed Forces and Civil Service will one day revolt against the system to "crush it from within", according to Omar Bakri Mohammed, the notorious Islamic extremist.

In claims condemned as a cynical attempt to create division, the co-founder of the extremist al-Muhajiroun group said that Britain was "digging a deep hole" for itself by allowing Muslims into the Services and Whitehall. Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph in Lebanon, where he moved in August 2005 — at about the time it emerged the British authorities might charge him with incitement to treason — he claimed police officers, soldiers and civil servants would one day become radicalised.

"When you start to ask Muslims to join your Army and your police you are making a grave mistake. That British Muslim who joins the police today will one day read the Koran and will have an awakening," he said. "Those moderates are one day going to be practising Muslims. Now what happens if they are British police or in the Army and they have weapons? How much information do they have about you that they will use to serve the global struggle? "They will revolt against the system if they have been failed by your foreign policy which is oppressive against Islam, or have been contacted by people who believe Britain is a domain of war."

In remarks almost certain to cause widespread anger among the survivors and relatives of victims, he also claimed that the world was a better place after the July 7 bombings in London. "I believe it is a better place for Islam and Muslims… but not for non-Muslims. What's happening around the world is good and positive for Islam."

The comments were condemned by moderate Muslim leaders. Ibrahim Mogra, the chairman of the Interfaith Relations Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "This is part of an attempt to create divisions both within the Muslim community and the wider society.

Excerpted

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/21/nhate21.xml