Author: Souad Mekhennet and Don
Van Natta Jr.
Publication: The New York Times
Date: July 22, 2005
On the eve of four attempted bombings
here on Thursday, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad, one of Britain's most outspoken
militant clerics, predicted that another terrorist attack would hit London.
In a wide-ranging telephone interview
late Wednesday night, Sheik Bakri also blamed the British government for
the July 7 terror attacks that killed at least 56 people on three London
Underground trains and a double-decker bus. He said "hundreds" of young,
disaffected British-born Muslims now felt compelled to take action in Britain
to protest Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy, especially the support
of the American-led invasion in Iraq, which they perceive as anti-Muslim.
"Unless British foreign policy is
changed and they withdraw forces from Iraq, I'm afraid there's going to
be a lot of attacks, just the way it happened in Madrid and the way it
happened in London," he said during a 40-minute conversation.
His preaching is heard or seen by
hundreds of people in central London halls and on his Web site, where he
has urged young men to fight "jihad" against "occupiers" in Iraq, Israel
and Chechnya. He routinely refers to the Sept. 11 hijackers as "the magnificent
19."
A Syrian-born, 47-year-old father
of seven who has lived in North London for 19 years, Sheik Bakri was granted
asylum in 1986, and receives public assistance of £300, or $545,
each month. On the cover of The Sun on Wednesday, his photograph was accompanied
with three bold words: "SEND HIM BAK."
Britain's home secretary, Charles
Clarke, has identified Sheik Bakri as one of several extremist clerics
who could be deported from Britain. As part of a new package of antiterror
legislation, the British government is considering banning clerics from
urging people to join a holy war or running a pro-jihad Web site.
Sheik Bakri said he would probably
leave Britain within the next several days on his own, possibly permanently.
He would not say where he intended to go.
"After all, I could worship God
here, I could worship God back in Lebanon," he said. "I could do evil here,
I could do that back in a Muslim country."
Sheik Bakri has preached to larger
crowds of young people within the last year, blaming the United States
and Britain for harming Muslims worldwide. He has also encouraged young
people to join a "global jihad," but he insisted Wednesday night that he
had never encouraged anyone to strike Britain. In fact, he said, he had
urged some young people to take their jihad intention abroad.
"Nobody said, 'Go out in London
and bomb,' " he said.
He said he believed that the British
government and the British people deserved the "blame" for the July 7 attacks,
saying Mr. Blair's re-election on May 5 made the attacks in London "inevitable."
"They know that the prime minister
has his hands full of the blood of Muslims in Palestine and in Iraq and
in Afghanistan," he said of young Muslims. But he said the policies of
the West's "war on terror" had incensed young people, causing some to want
to strike out against Britain. "We hear from many people who say they want
to attack," he said.
Sheik Bakri has said Osama bin Laden
warned European countries with troops in Iraq last April, giving them 90
days for them to remove their troops. No one listened, he said.
As for his own future, he acknowledged
that he no longer felt at home in Britain. "They want to deport me, let
it be," he said moments before the conversation ended. "They want to arrest
me, let it be."
