Author:
Publication: The Times of London
Date: October 30, 2001
URL: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001370003-2001374353,00.html
There is a terrible, visceral rage
among Luton's young Muslim brotherhood, a fury so powerful that already
dozens of men, all British born and highly educated, have disappeared to
fight for the Taleban. It has left parents terrified, the town's mosques
full of loathing and yesterday, as The Times discovered first-hand, seen
journalists and photographers physically attacked.
Afzal Munir, 25, a newly married
business graduate and one of two men from the Bedfordshire town killed
in a US rocket attack on Kabul, worshipped at a one-room radical mosque
situated in the Call To Islam Bookshop, above an insurance shop in the
Dunstable Road. Within a minute of arriving outside the mosque, this Times
reporter and cameraman were set upon by a Muslim man, who had rushed, enraged,
from a halal butcher shop.
"You insult Islam, you corrupt Islam!"
he screamed, smashing the camera to the ground and grabbing another photographer
by the throat. "You don't understand how angry we Muslims are!" Five other
Muslim men joined him, surrounding us, as he demanded the other camera.
Their sense of fury was frightening.
Five hundred yards away, outside
Luton's Central Mosque, the third largest in the country, Mohammed Abdullah,
a 22-year-old accountant, articulated this rage. His words should serve
as a warning to Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, who yesterday said British
men joining the Taleban would either die in Afghanistan or face prosecution
if they returned here.
"They want to die there," Mr Abdullah
said. "These are well-educated people. They have families. I knew Afzal.
He loved his wife. But you must understand: all Muslims in Britain view
supporting the jihad (holy war) as a religious duty. All of us are ready
to sacrifice our lives for our beliefs.I am jealous of Afzal. He has reached
paradise."
He continued: "There are people
leaving all the time. Not just in Luton, but all over Britain. We, as Muslims,
don't perceive ourselves as British Muslims. We are Muslims who live in
Britain. All we want to do is go to Afghanistan to defend the honour and
sanctity of Islam. I have a wife who is eight months pregnant. But I am
thinking of going and helping my Muslim brothers. I read that we are brainwashed.
That is nonsense. We are intelligent people and we hate America and the
British Government for the bombing."
Behind such talk, which dismays
the elderly leaders of Luton's 22,000 Muslims, lurk the seductive, articulate
disciples of Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, leader of al-Muhajiroun, the British
Islamist organisation that encouraged Mr Munir and Aftab Manzoor, the other
dead man, to join the jihad. Sheikh Omar, who is under investigation for
allegedly issuing a fatwa against the Pakistan President, General Musharraf,
described the two men as "martyrs beyond a doubt". Shahed, the group's
Luton leader, admits that he urged the pair to join Osama bin Laden's jihad
- but not "physically" - by donating money.
"But if we write about issues, about
what is happening to our brothers in Palestine, it can excite people. If
I see Tony Blair on TV, and listen to his hypocrisy over Palestine, I want
to grab his throat."
The group has been causing problems
in Luton since 1994, when Sheikh Omar and his followers tried to take over
control of the Central Mosque. It, and other extremist organisations, now
recruit outside the town's 50-odd mosques.
Targeting the young, they repeat,
again and again, that all obedient Muslims must support bin Laden and his
holy war. They are banned from the Central Mosque and the university campus,
but Mr Munir attended their Friday meetings. He went to school and college
locally, loved cricket and football, and three weeks ago disappeared without
telling his wife where he was going.
"He was a quiet, extremely religious
boy," Mohammed Sulaimen, president of the Central Mosque, said. "All parents
are worried. Many have gone to join the Taleban, perhaps dozens. Afzal,
he took his passport, some money, and he goes. This group, it keeps taking
people, brainwashing them. They give them these pamphlets. It makes them
angry. But what can we do? We can't stop them going."
Syed, a community worker, has visited
Muslim communities across the country. "They are disappearing all over
Britain. They say they are going down to the shops, and never return,"
he said.
Shahed and supporters set up a stall
in central Luton yesterday, chanting anti-American slogans and carrying
banners.
"The Devil is America, and the British
Government," said Abdullah Khan, 23. "It is Bush and Blair I blame for
Muslims going to fight. They are being provoked to do it by those two Great
Satans."
