Exiled extremist boasts 14-year Oxford recruitment campaign
The leader of the banned Islamist group al- Muhajiroun claimed this week to have been operating within Oxford University. In an exclusive interview with The Oxford Student, Omar Bakri- Muhammed claims to have spoken at al-Muhajiroun meetings in Oxford University Student Union’s offices under the guise of debating societies over a 14-year period. Muslim students across Oxford have condemned Islamic extremism and voiced their concerns over Bakri’s claims.
The extraordinary revelations come as the controversial intelligence expert Prof Anthony Glees today delivers a speech warning of the growing threat of radicalism on British campuses. Omar Bakri is known to be a prominent Islamic extremist, who in 2003 referred to the 9/11 hijackers as the ‘magnificent 19’ and was reported in 2005 as having labelled the 7/7 bombers ‘the fantastic four’.
In 2002, Roland Jacquard, an expert on Islamic terrorism, claimed, “Every al-Qaeda operative recently arrested or identified in Europe has come into contact with Bakri at some time or other.
Bakri ran al-Muhajiroun, which aimed to establish a global Islamic state, from Tottenham, north London, before it was banned under the Terrorism Act 2006. The cleric flew to Lebanon in August 2005, after learning that he might face charges of solicitation to murder and incitement to treason. He was later barred from returning to the UK by the Home Secretary.
This week The Oxford Student tracked the Islamic leader to Tripoli, a Lebanese city 85 kilometres north of Beirut, where he is working as a librarian in an Islamic college.
Bakri claims that al-Muhajiroun (‘The Exiles’) distributed leaflets to students outside University buildings from the “Oxford Discussion Stall” and had the support of a cell of “around a dozen” Oxford members.
Speaking from his home on Monday morning, Bakri said: “I was in Oxford in 2002 after the first anniversary of 9/11. It was a public talk on 3rd March 2002 to commemorate the anniversary of the Islamic Caliphate… We gave out leaflets from what we called the Oxford Discussion Stall. I went and I saw the Muslim brothers distributing leaflets for al-Muhajiroun”.
Asked whether these ‘brothers’ were members of Oxford University, Bakri replied: “Of course, they used to study there.”
The Oxford Student has obtained electronic copies of nine leaflets Bakri claims were distributed in Oxford by al-Muhajiroun. One entitled The Rotten Fruits of Democracy states that adultery, homosexuality and paedophilia are a product of liberal society. “Democracy and all that emanates from it is retarded and perverse… Truly the Kuffaar (non-Muslims) are upon a falsehood and what they believe in and live according to is what will make them residents of the Hellfire… Do you really want to live in a society where people live like animals?”
The leaflets, which include a discussion of the status of women, are labelled as being produced by the ‘University of Oxford Da’wah [evangelism] Society’. They carry a mobile phone number to contact “for more information about Islam.” It has emerged that the number is that of Anjem Choudary, a close associate of Bakri.
In an extraordinary development Bakri also claimed that he had preached to students from OUSU’s former Little Clarendon Street headquarters.
“We were there every Wednesday or Thursday. We used to have open discussion sessions inside the Student Union…but we never used an Islamic name.”
“When visiting universities we always had a variety of names – ‘Peaceful Society’, ‘Shisha Society’, ‘Intellectual Society’. We never held a function under the name of al-Muhajiroun.”
Bakri added that the University campus was the ideal place to recruit new members.
“We used to discuss freedom, democracy, the New World Order, radicalism, globalisation, those types of things.”
“No-one paid attention to us. They didn’t see us as extremists but as intellectual students”.
Bakri told The Oxford Student that he had been visiting Oxford since the late 1980s, and had later come to speak on the Bosnian crisis and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
According to a report produced by Nixon centre, a US foreign affairs think-tank, Bakri told the Guardian in 1996 that al-Muhajiroun planned to recruit from Oxbridge. Referring to his tactic of establishing front groups for radicalism, he said, “They will not be able to ban peace and human societies. If they do, it will only backfire… we will use other people.”
The Syrian-born father of seven said that he was accompanied on his visits by the prominent radicals Anjem Choudary and Abu Izzadeen. Choudary, a leading member of al-Muhajiroun’s successor group Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah, has argued that the assassination of Pope Benedict XVI would be justified. Izzadeen has described the 7th July attacks as “completely praiseworthy”.
Choudary and Izzadeen have independently confirmed that they had visited Oxford University “on several occasions” with Bakri.
Choudary told the Oxford Student: “Sheikh Omar Bakri had many platforms around the country, and I definitely remember watching him speak in a debate in Oxford”.
Izzadeen, who in March 2006 heckled the Home Secretary John Reid at a press conference, said: “We held a street stall outside the University. We pride ourselves as Islamists on freedom of speech.”
When asked about the level of support for al-Muhajiroun at Oxford University, Bakri said that he was unsure of the exact membership, but that it was around “a dozen or less”. However he claimed that the group had the active support of up to 40 students.
Prof Anthony Glees will today warn that up to 48 universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have been infiltrated by Islamic fundamentalists.
Professor Glees, director of Brunel University's Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies and author of the controversial 2005 report When Students Turn to Terror, met with the Minister for Higher Education, Bill Rammell, a week before government guidelines on how to manage Islamic Extremism on campuses, were sent to UK Universities.
This week Professor Glees told The Oxford Student, “Unless clear and decisive action against campus extremism is taken, the security situation in the UK can only deteriorate.
“If we go back and look at the other things Bakri has said they have turned out be correct and that’s very worrying.”
“The security officers at Oxford University should be looking into this. People who take the al-Muhajiroun line are going up and down the country and talking to students. I do think we are taking about thousands of students being recruited.”
Muslim students in Oxford have condemned Bakri’s claims of support for extremism amongst the student body. Usaama Al-Azami, ISoc President, said: “Omar Bakri represents precisely the sort of individual we as a society and our members individually view as having nothing to do with the Islam of the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the UK.” Faisal Hanjra, a spokesman for FOSIS, the Federation of Student Islamic Students, said: “In our experience al-Muhajiroun have made statements that have been grandiose and largely unsubstantiated.” Rama Salih, a 2nd year Muslim at St Hugh’s, said: “I condemn al- Muhajiroun wholeheartedly. It is a false image of Islam that is promoted by a minority that reflects unfairly on the rest of us. The way they preach and act has very little to do with Islam.”
A University spokesperson said: “The University takes the threat from all forms of extremism very seriously and remains vigilant against any form of infiltration. Where the law is broken, such as through intimidation, incitement to violence or membership of banned groups, the University will co-operate with the police as appropriate. For obvious reasons the University is unable to discuss security matters in detail.”
OUSU President Alan Strickland said: “It would obviously be of great concern if extremist groups associated with terrorism were found to have held recruiting meetings in Oxford, potentially in the Student Union.”
"It would demonstrate the need for heightened vigilance, but it important that genuine concerns about security are not used as an excuse for racial prejudice and unthinking suspicion of groups of students."
Abu Izzadeen has indicated that neither al-Muhajiroun nor its successor organisations are currently active in Oxford.
19th Apr 2007