Posted on 10/23/2001 5:35:20 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:28 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Sunday October 21 1:01 PM ET
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Abu Hamza al-Masri fought in Afghanistan and Bosnia. His missing hands and left eye are his war decorations. Now his weapons are words and his battlefield is Britain, the country that gave him asylum, and which he calls an enemy of Islam.
The U.S.-British bombing in Afghanistan has pushed the struggle into a new phase, says the Egyptian-born cleric. ``It's now the time for martyrdom - the end game for all those who bear animosity toward Islam.''
It sounds similar to threats made by terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden, except that it emanates from the north London suburb of Finsbury Park, where 43-year-old al-Masri is the imam of the mosque. He has had British citizenship since 1985, and is protected by British law from extradition to Yemen, where he is wanted in connection with several bombings, including one that killed three people, and a kidnapping that ended in a rescue attempt that left four hostages dead.
Al-Masri is among a few dozen militant Arab Muslims who have trickled into Britain since the late 1980s to escape repressive regimes back home. To a country with about 2.5 million Muslims, they bring the extremist brand of Islam that fuels radical groups and suicide bombers like those behind the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The message, delivered in mosques, university campuses and on the Internet, appeals to young British Muslims struggling with identity crises and racism. They may be a minority, but their radicalization may pose a potential danger in Britain and elsewhere.
Al-Masri sees his movement as the matrix from which world Islam's future will develop. ``We are only a few, but we are pioneers in the service of God,'' said al-Masri.
He doesn't think bin Laden was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and said blaming Muslims for the attacks was a ``conspiracy.''
``I don't condemn that operation because it may be the work of a cell of infidels,'' al-Masri said. ``But we ask God to destroy that nation (the United States) which harms Muslims anyway. If He does, then it's a blessing.''
The discovery that three of the Sept. 11 hijackers lived quietly in Germany for years, and the arrest in London of an Algerian pilot alleged to have instructed some of the hijackers, have drawn attention to Arabs living in Europe with possible links to bin Laden.
Many are known as ``Afghan Arabs,'' men who in the 1980s rallied to Afghanistan's defense against the invading Soviets, supported by the United States and its Arab allies.
Thought to number about 5,000 and mostly from Egypt, Yemen and Gulf states, many later moved on to fight for the Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya. With the United States now their enemy, and hunted by pro-Western Arab regimes, hundreds have found refuge in Europe.
``There is no doubt that we Muslims are here in the land of the enemies of Islam,'' said al-Masri, who leads Supporters of al-Sharia (Islamic law), a London-based group.
Al-Masri, who says he has a British engineering degree, runs ``self-defense'' camps for young British Muslims, some of whom may choose to join the fighting in Chechnya or Kashmir.
Getting to him at his office in the mosque isn't easy. He is surrounded by a protective band of young British and Algerian Muslims. A reporter trying to contact him was initially rebuffed as an ``enemy of God'' for working for a Western news organization.
But once al-Masri sat down for an interview at his office in the mosque, he made no attempt to hide his militancy.
``War must be waged against America,'' he said. ``Without it, America will own the land and God will not like that.''
At the same time, he complained that increased police surveillance and questioning of his supporters was keeping Muslims away from his mosque, where a police patrol car is permanently stationed.
``They are fools,'' he said of the British security agencies. ``They may be scaring people from responding to me, but they will never stop them from responding to God Almighty.''
That there are Muslims who enjoy the safety, hospitality and citizenship of Britain, yet portray it has an enemy, makes many Britons angry.
Lawmaker Andrew Dismore of the ruling Labor Party said in Parliament that the laws should be toughened to permit the expulsion of those ``who abuse our democratic system and actively seek to destroy the society that protects them from the regimes that they would themselves impose on others.''
He named al-Masri as one of ``bin Laden's fellow travelers,'' and said his organization was among several that should be banned under anti-terrorism legislation.
The government has already proposed strong measures, including emergency powers to deport terrorism suspects and suspend some human rights legislation.
That would be welcome news to France, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and others that have long chided Britain for granting asylum to terrorism suspects.
Most British Muslims are moderate, like Lord Ahmed, a Labor Party lawmaker. But he worries that if the bombing continues and more innocent Afghans die, ``there will be a reaction here in Britain and young men will begin to leave for Afghanistan to join the fight.''
Ahmed advocates deporting terrorism suspects. The problem is, ``we are a democracy. We cannot just lock people up as they do elsewhere.''
On Thursday police said they were investigating about two dozen terrorist suspects in Britain at the FBI's request. It did not identify them.
Yasser al-Sirri, another Egyptian, has lived in Britain since 1984, and runs a Muslim human rights monitoring group in London.
He has been sentenced to death in Egypt, where security officials contend that he at one time was high up in the military wing of Islamic Jihad, the terrorist group blamed for the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat and a series of assassination attempts in the 1990s.
``It's an honor that I don't deserve,'' al-Sirri said in an interview.
Britain has in recent years also been the refuge of choice of members of the Armed Islamic Group, an Algerian group blamed for a wave of bombings in France in the 1990s. Muslim militants linked to armed groups fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan province of Kashmir are also known to operate in Britain.
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