Free Republic

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 ...

A suspect accused of attempting to plant a bomb on New York's Times Square has ties with the Islamic preacher who inspired a US soldier to kill 12 comrades at Fort Hood and the Christmas Day would-be bomber. Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born US citizen has told interrogators that he been inspired to take up the cause of al Qaeda and radical Islam by the internet messages of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based imam. Awlaki, who was born in America, was accused of grooming Nidal Hasan in a series of emails before the US soldier opened fire at the Texas military base...

LONDON - A Muslim cleric accused of inciting followers to murder "nonbelievers" was granted bail on Wednesday, after a judge ruled that prosecutors had not released documents to his defense team quickly enough. Prosecutors say Abdullah el-Faisal, 38, circulated cassettes of his sermons in which he called on Muslims to kill Hindus, Jews and other nonbelievers. He was arrested in February and denied bail after a judge ruled there was a chance he would go into hiding and commit further offenses. But sitting at London's Old Bailey criminal court on Wednesday, Judge Peter Beaumont granted el-Faisal bail, on condition he...

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."

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 web of associates allegedly leading back to Osama bin Laden.Yesterday Faisal, 39, was convicted of soliciting murder and stirring...