Category Archives: UK

Plane bomb suspect ‘radicalised after leaving UK’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Umar Farouk AbdulmutallabA former close friend of the man accused of trying to blow up a US plane has said he believes he was radicalised after leaving the UK in 2008.

Qasim Rafiq knew suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of an attempted attack on Christmas Day, for three years at University College London. He said Nigerian-born Mr Abdulmutallab, 23, had shown no signs of violent extremism during their friendship. He said wanted to know what had driven his former friend “down this road”.

Mr Abdulmutallab took an engineering with business finance degree at UCL between September 2005 and June 2008 and was president of its Islamic Society between 2006 and 2007.

Mr Rafiq, who preceded Mr Abdulmutallab as president, said if Mr Abdulmutallab had expressed radical views during their friendship, it would have raised question marks with him. He added there was pressure on Islamic societies after the London 7/7 bombings, so if had he done anything unusual during his time at UCL, it would have been flagged up.

Mr Rafiq told the BBC: “When I heard the news I wasn’t sure what to think. I thought could this really be the same person? The humble, the kind, the well-mannered, well-spoken individual that I knew and I was a close friend to went on to do what he did. If I could speak to him now I would ask him: ‘What is it that drove you down this road because you were not like this when I knew you? You were not like this when you were the president of the Islamic Society.'”

BBC News, 1 January 2009

Universities are now hotbeds of Islamic extremism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen_PollardSo Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard claims, in a comment piece in today’s Daily Express.

The article is a predictable mish-mash drawn from Anthony Glees, author of the discredited scaremongering “study” When Students Turn to Terror, from the Centre for Social Cohesion’s nonsense about a third of Muslim students believing that “killing in the name of religion was justified” and, last but not least, from the Quilliam Foundation’s recent witch-hunt against the Green Lane Masjid in Birmingham.

Pollard concludes: “So when we read about Mr Abdulmutallab we should place him in this context. His is the name we now know. But the extremists are working to ensure that while he may have failed, others will succeed. And the authorities still – despite 9/11, despite the 2005 Tube bombings, despite other terrorist plots – refuse to root out extremism…. The extremists may be the enemy of Western civilisation but in our failure to take the threat seriously, we are our own worst enemy.”

Given that, according to Pollard’s analysis, mainstream mosques like the Green Lane Masjid are promoting terrorism and a third of Muslim students are potential killers, what else can this be but a call for a general crack-down on the Muslim community?

See also “Detroit terror attack: British university ‘complicit’ in radicalisation” in the Telegraph. This report relies on quotations from Glees and from Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion, who accuses University College London of having “failed grotesquely to clamp down on extremism”.

Murray is of course inclined to see extremism everywhere in the Muslim community. In a TV discussion programme that was not broadcast because of his libellous comments, he notoriously accused Salma Yaqoob of supporting terrorism and rioting.

Update:  See “UCL President speaks out against false insinuations of radicalisation”, ENGAGE, 31 January 2009

Further update:  See Inayat Bunglawala’s piece at Comment is Free. Responding the Telegraph article, he writes:

“Glees does not share with us what actual evidence, if any, he has that enables him to conclude that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was recruited by al-Qaida in London, but we’ll pass over that for now. Of more immediate concern is his absurd demand that student Islamic societies give ‘assurances that no radicalisation will be allowed’ and that they should be disbanded unless they do. What on earth is ‘radicalisation’ supposed to mean in this context? TheTelegraph mentions that the Islamic society at University College London – of which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was president – organised a series of lectures in 2007 on the ‘War on Terror’. Can you imagine that? Students organising lectures that are critical of US and UK foreign policy. Goodness, who would have thought it?”

Blame terrorism on multiculturalism, migration and the Human Rights Act

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“As Britain finds itself yet again at the hub of an international bomb plot, Home Secretary Alan Johnson declares we can ‘never be complacent’ about the threat from Islamist terrorism since 9/11. Yet hasn’t Labour been breathtakingly complacent throughout the past decade?

“This is the Government, after all, which has introduced human rights laws making it all but impossible to expel terrorists. In its zeal for ‘multiculturalism’, it has allowed extremists to preach murder in British mosques, while doing nothing to suppress terrorist cells in our universities. Meanwhile, its disgracefully lax migration policy has thrown open our borders to new arrivals on an unprecedented scale, with few or no questions asked….

“In the coming years, this country must face up squarely to the terrorist threat. This will mean effective action against preachers of hate, with amendments to our human rights laws if necessary. It will also mean far tougher border controls – and an end, once and for all, to the scandal of offering visas to study on bogus academic courses.”

Daily Mail, 29 December 2009

‘We Don’t Want a Mosque in Clitheroe’ Facebook page monitored by police

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A leader of Clitheroe’s small Muslim community has spoken of his disappointment after a social networking page was set up to protest against the building of the town’s new mosque.

The group on Facebook, called “We Don’t Want a Mosque in Clitheroe”, was started in response to plans to convert the disused former Mount Zion Methodist Chapel in Lowergate, into a community facility and place of worship for the local Muslim community.

The campaign’s supporters, believed to be mostly from outside the Ribble Valley, are now being warned their comments are being monitored by police and should think twice before posting anything abusive or offensive.

The Facebook group has more than 1,000 people signed up and features inflammatory comments.

Clitheroe Advertiser, 29 December 2009

West Midlands mosque burnt to the ground by arsonists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cradley Heath MosqueCradley Heath’s Muslim community is appealing for help after its mosque was burnt to the ground by arsonists. A fire engulfed the Cradley Heath Mosque and Islamic Centre on Boxing Day destroying the building and the religious countless books inside. It is the second time in five years that the building has been targeted by arsonists and police are hunting the culprits.

The mosque was a thriving part of the community with 400 worshippers using it and classes of children being taught there. The worshippers are now trying to find a new place to worship as the new Mosque they have being building alongside the old one will not be ready for use for several years.

Halesowen News, 29 December 2009

Mad Mel explains the ‘Christmas Day bomber’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in BritainMelanie Phillips offers her take on the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a transatlantic flight:

“Who can be surprised? After all, this is ‘Londonistan’ – the contemptuous term coined by the French security service back in the Nineties as they watched Britain become the central hub of Islamic terrorism in Europe.

“Radicals flocked to the UK, attracted by Britain’s toxic combination of criminally lax immigration controls, generous health, education and welfare benefits and the ability to perpetuate their views through the British veneration of the principle of free speech.

“Despite 9/11, the 2005 London Tube and bus attacks and the dozens of other Islamist plots uncovered in Britain, the astounding fact is that Islamic extremist networks are still allowed to flourish in Britain, largely through the obsession of its governing class with multiculturalism and ‘human rights’…. Not only is no action taken against extremist mosques and madrassas, but many British universities have been turned into terrorism recruitment centres…. Last year, a poll by the Centre for Social Cohesion found – horrifyingly – that almost one in every three Muslim students in the UK said that killing in the name of religion was justified, with one third also in favour of a worldwide Islamic caliphate, or empire, based on Islamic sharia law…..

“The Government is funnelling money into extremist Islamist groups, and even employs Islamist radicals within government as advisers on – wait for it – ‘combating Islamic extremism’. All in all, Britain’s defences against radical Islamism now resemble nothing so much as one giant hen-house over which a pack of ravenous foxes has been placed in charge.

“The root cause of this madness is that British ministers and officials refuse to accept that what they are facing is religious fanaticism. They insist that Islamic extremism and terrorism have got nothing to do with Islam but are rather a ‘perversion’ of Islam. And they believe that the antidote to this is ‘authentic’ Islam – which they then use taxpayers’ money to promote. But what they fail to grasp is that ‘authentic’ Islam is currently dominated by a deeply politicised interpretation which promotes holy war to conquer ‘infidels’ and insufficiently pious Muslims.”

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Nigerian in aircraft attack linked to London mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thus the headline to report in the Independent. And what exactly is the link between Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the mosque in question? The Independent explains that “associates claim he visited the East London Mosque, which has attracted criticism for hosting Muslim hardline preachers, three times”.

Yup, that’s what “link” between Abdulmutallab and the East London Mosque consists of. While he was studying mechanical engineering at University College London between 2005 and 2008, Abdulmutallab visited the East London Mosque three times! This really is investigative journalism at its best.

The East London Mosque has issued a statement saying that it is “appalled that it should be associated with such heinous acts”. The statement continues:

“The Mosque cannot comment as to whether this individual attended the mosque. Over 20,000 people, of Muslim and other faiths, visit the Mosque every week. They use the mosque for many different purposes including worship, weddings, and to use any of the 30 different projects and services that are based at our institution.”

Update:  The Telegraph (29 December) quotes security sources as saying that Abdulmutallab had “attended the East London Mosque in Whitechapel” and heads its report “Suspect’s link to mosque confirmed”! Unlike the Independent, the Telegraph avoids undermining its scaremongering story by mentioning that Abdulmutallab attended the mosque on three occasions over three years.

This report has now been withdrawn from the Telegraph website. It has been replaced by one headed “East London mosque condemns Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab“.

What is wrong with this ‘Muslim Eton’?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Bishop of Burnley wants the school placed elsewhere, lest it inflame local bigots. Is that how we do things, though, Your Grace? Work out what the worst people might think and pander accordingly?

“The local MP, Gordon Prentice (Lab), says: ‘The last thing we need is single-sex, single-faith schools for girls.’ Really? The last thing? Let us assume that an all-girl faith school is going to be, relative to the average urban comprehensive, well behaved, hard working, high achieving and safe. Is that the last thing we need? If you made a list of candidates for ‘the last thing we need’, in Britain today, would that be top? …

“I just can’t find room for a girls’ faith school in my vision of a nightmare world. But I understand what the bishop and the MP are worried about. The benefit or danger of separatism is one of the huge unanswered questions about education….

“Nevertheless, Mr Prentice, beware your use of the word ‘we’. You said: ‘The last thing we need is single-sex, single-faith schools for girls.’ Who is ‘we’ in that sentence? You don’t mean teenage Muslim girls, do you? … I can’t solve the social problems of Lancashire or the big philosophical riddles of education. But I do know, when talking about Britain, that teenage Muslim girls are also ‘we’. While they are likely to grow up underrepresented in government, perhaps the last thing we need is for our existing politicians to forget that.”

Observer, 27 December 2009

On the trail with the EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

English Defence League. Protest march Manchester.

On Platform One at Bolton station a mob of around 100 men punch the air in unison. The chant goes up: “Muslim bombers, off our streets, Muslim bombers off our streets…”

Their voices echo loudly and more men suddenly appear; startled passengers move aside. The group march forward waving St George Cross flags and holding up placards. The throng of men around me applaud. A train heading for Glasgow draws up on the opposite platform and the men turn as one, bursting into song: “Engelaand, Engelaand, Engelaand.”

Some of the men hide behind balaclavas, others wear black hoodies. A few speak on mobile phones, their hands pressed against their ears to block out the cacophony.

“It’s already kicking off in Manchester. This could be tasty,” shouts one. These are some of the most violent football hooligans in Britain and today they have joined together in an unprecedented show of strength. Standing shoulder to shoulder are notorious gangs – or “firms” as they are known – such as Cardiff City’s Soul Crew, Bolton Wanderers’ Cuckoo Boys and Luton Town’s Men In Gear.

The gathering is remarkable, as on a match day these men would be fighting each other. But it is politics that has drawn them together. They are headed for Manchester to support a march by the burgeoning English Defence League.

Green Lane Masjid replies to Quilliam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Green Lane Masjid has issued another press release replying to the attack by the Quilliam Foundation. It states in part:

“Unfortunately, it appears that the Quilliam Foundation has set out with a pre-determined agenda to create mischief and portray us in a negative light, in order to foment divisions amid British Muslims along sectarian lines and generate mistrust amongst the wider public. We believe that the press release issued by the Quilliam Foundation will play into the hands of those who wish to exacerbate tensions within society, and portrays Green Lane Masjid and Community Centre in a defamatory and negative light.”

Quilliam, for its part, has published an open letter to Faisal Al-Jassim attempting to justify their accusation that he is a “fellow traveller” of al-Qaida.

Via ENGAGE