Militant Imams Under Scrutiny Across Europe

Thursday, January 27, 2005

NYTIMES ^ 01/25/05 DON VAN NATTA Jr. and LOWELL BERGMAN



ONDON, Jan. 24 - In nightly sermons broadcast on the Internet, Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, a 46-year-old Syrian-born cleric, has urged young Muslim men all over the world to support the Iraq insurgency on the front line of "the global jihad," investigators say.

He struck a similarly defiant tone this month at a rally attended by 500 people at a central London meeting hall, where a giant screen behind him showed images of the World Trade Center falling. "Allah akbar!" - "God is great" - some audience members shouted at the images.

After eavesdropping for months on his nightly praise of the Sept. 11 hijackers and of suicide bombings, Scotland Yard said last week that it was investigating Sheik Omar, the leader of Al Muhajiroun, Britain's largest Muslim group, and officials are exploring whether they can deport him. "We're fed up with him," said a senior British official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He needs to be stopped, or he needs to go."

The more aggressive approach toward Sheik Omar is part of an increasing effort to monitor and restrict militant imams in Britain and across Europe. Authorities have stepped up surveillance of militant mosques in several countries, including Germany and France. French officials deported an imam this month after officials said he was inspiring men to join the jihad.

One major concern, officials say, is that more heated religious rhetoric is encouraging young men to leave home to fight in Iraq.


"I believe Muslims are obliged to support their Muslim brothers abroad - verbally, financially, politically," he told The Associated Press. "I never said, 'Go abroad.' But if people want to go abroad, (as in let's kill some infidels) it's a very good thing to do. But we never recruit people to go abroad."


News of the central London rally, which was first reported by United Press International, and portions of Sheik Omar's nightly Internet sermons, have alarmed senior British officials. In one sermon last week, Sheik Omar called Al Qaeda "the victorious group" that he said Muslims were "obliged" to join.

It is not just imams who have become outspoken in exhorting young men to become jihadists. At the rally sponsored by Sheik Omar, a young speaker named Abu Yahya Abderahman said: "We are at war. It's time for brothers, sisters and children to prepare. Prepare as much as you can, whether they are sticks or stones or bombs. Prepare as much as you can to defeat them, to terrorize them."

Now leading the mosque is another militant Muslim, Abu Abdullah, who said in an interview, "People see us as extremists because we don't compromise the religion of Allah."