Filed under: Islam, National Security, Terrorism, United Kingdom | Tags: East London Mosque, Radical Islamist Imam, Suicide Bombers
It seems interesting to me that the American-born Islamist imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who groomed Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer and the Christmas day Northwest flight 253 bomber Umar Abdulmutallab, remains mostly unknown and undiscussed.
Somehow it seems worse to train and inspire someone to become a suicide bomber— to kill the maximum number of people and one’s self — than it is to actually do the killing.
The imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, prevailed upon Major Hasan over a long period here, was his ‘mentor’ if that word can be used in such a context, and convinced him that killing his fellow soldiers was a very good thing.
Umar Abdulmutallab, while a student in London between 2005 and 2008 listened to a number of video-link lectures given by al-Awlaki at the East London Mosque’s Muslim Centre. By then, al-Awlaki was communicating at long distance from Yemen, where he had taken refuge and become affiliated with al Qaeda. When Abdulmutallab himself went to Yemen, where he was trained and equipped as a suicide bomber, he had personal contact with al-Awlaki, evidently his mentor.
The East London Mosque is one of the largest and most influential Islamic institutions in Britain. Its Muslim Center is a meeting place which acts somewhat like a college, offering lectures and sermons where people can meet.
David Pryce-Jones reports that the Muslim Centre has received at least £60,000 from a British Government initiative known as “Preventing Violent Extremism.” The intent is to fund moderates in opposition to the extremists, but the very opposite has happened. The worst violent extremism has been subsidized.
In the last two years, al-Awlaki has addressed at least two gatherings at the Centre via video-link, including one last year called “The End of Time,” advertised with a poster showing the destruction of New York.
It’s bad enough that the President keeps making the silly claim that Guantanamo is what drives jihadists to al Qaeda, but misplaced notions about diversity open the visa spigot to young men from the Middle East without enough oversight. Profiling is avoided because it might offend. We fund terrorism in many ways, as does the British government through well-meant foolishness.
And as Hasan and Abdulmutallab are charged and tried, presumably either sentenced to death or life in prison, their imam who is really responsible sits in Yemen. If he is captured can he even be charged with something that approaches the magnitude of his crime?
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