Omar Bakri Muhammad
Omar Bakri Muhammad is the founder of Al-Muhajiroun.
Background
Bakri was born in Syria in 1958.[1] He left that country in 1982, following the Assad regime's repression of the Muslim Brotherhood revolt in which he had taken part.[2] He founded Al-Muhajiroun in Saudi Arabia in 1983.[3] Following the proscription of Al-Muhajiroun in Saudi Arabia, Bakri fled to Britain in 1986.[4]
Hizb-ut-Tahrir leader
Bakri subsequently became leader of the British branch of Hizb-ut-Tahrir.[5] He was arrested in 1991 after saying that John Major was a legitimate target for assassination as a result of the Gulf War.[6] He was not charged over the incident.[7]
During the 1990s he supported the KLA in Kosovo.[8] The American intelligence writer John Loftus has claimed he was working with British intelligence at this time.[9]
Forms Al-Muhajiroun
Bakri split with Hizb-ut-Tahrir in early 1996, when he formed his own separate Al-Muhajiroun organisation.[10]
Journalist Mark Curtis reports that in the late 1990s, Bakr claimed to be operating in Britain under a 'covenant of security' with the British state.[11] This must be treated with some caution as it is sourced to a MEMRI report.[12] MEMRI in turn cites an interview with Bakri by Patrick Goodenough for a news site associated with the US conservative movement, CNSNews.com.[13]
Bakri left Britain for Lebanon a month after the 2005 London bombings. The Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced in 2006, that he would not be allowed to return to Britain.[14] Mark Curtis suggests that this was an arrangement designed to conceal potentially embarrassing past links between Bakri and the intelligence community.[15]
External resources
- Mahan Abedin, Al-Muhajiroun in the UK: An Interview with Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, Jamestown Foundation, 25 May 2005.
Notes
- ↑ Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque, HarperCollins, 2006, p.105.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.273.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.244.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.245.
- ↑ Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque, HarperCollins, 2006, p.105.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.273.
- ↑ Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory, The Suicide Factory: Abu Hamza and the Finsbury Park Mosque, HarperCollins, 2006, p.113.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.245.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.244.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.273.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.243.
- ↑ Yotam Feldner, Radical Islamist Profiles (2): Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad - London, MEMRI, 25 October 2001.
- ↑ Patrick Goodenough, UK Muslims Being Trained in US for Jihad, CNSnews.com, 24 May 2000.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.274.
- ↑ Mark Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam, Serpent's Tale, 2010, p.275.
