Profile: Islam4UK

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By Dominic Casciani BBC News Street campaigning and agitation: An al-Muhajiroun poster

Islam4UK, the group that has claimed that it will march through Wootton Bassett, is the latest incarnation of a hardline Islamist organisation called al-Muhajiroun.

Al-Muhajiroun, in its various forms, is an important part of the story of Islamist anger and the line between politics, protest and national security.

The organisation is made up of a small band of tight-knit young men who advocate a worldwide Islamist system of government and, at the same time, vehemently denounce the foreign policies of the US and UK.

It has a knack of staging attention-grabbing stunts with its leaders adept at finding ways of provoking a backlash from the press and some politicians.

Al-Muhajiroun was originally formed by Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical preacher. He formed the organisation after quitting another Islamist group which wasn't radical enough for his views.

Bakri developed an almost clownish media profile - but his views played an important role in the radicalization of some young men.

One of al-Muhajiroun's events was billed as celebrating the "Magnificent 19" plane hijackers who had taken the fight back to the West.

He sought to open a debate on the traditional Islamic thinking that Muslims living in a non-Muslim country have a "covenant of security" with their neighbours, providing they are treated as equal citizens.

He argued that Muslims were victims - and some of his followers concluded that this justified a violent response.

Disbanded

Bakri himself disbanded al-Muhajiroun in 2004. He then blamed the British people for the 7 July 2005 attacks on London - before fleeing to Lebanon.

Bakri: Fled the UK in 2005

He has continued to preach to followers in the UK over the internet but is banned from entering the country.

But while the original organisation was officially dead, its British supporters reappeared under various banners over the next five years.

One of these, the Saviour Sect, theatrically stormed a 2005 general election rally to debate how Muslims should vote, declaring that any who did so were apostates punishable by death.

The other group, Al-Ghurabaa, hosted links on its website to hardline forums which justified suicide bombings. The Home Office subsequently banned both groups.

Last year, some of al-Muhajiroun's original followers started campaigning fro their brand of worldwide Islamic rule under the name Islam4Uk. Its website carried a picture of Buckingham Palace converted to a mosque.

Months later they declared they were "reforming" al-Muhajiroun itself because the organisation had never actually been banned.

Key figures

With Bakri out of the country, the leader of Islam4UK/al-Muhajiroun is former lawyer Anjem Choudary.

Anjem Choudary: Prolific media performer

Some of the group's other supporters have been convicted or implicated in serious offences.

In 2006, Abu Izzadeen, also known as Omar Brooks, infamously heckled the then Home Secretary John Reid. He was later jailed for seeking to raise funds in 2004 for mujahideen fighters in Iraq.

In a separate trial, two men who attended a rally over the global Danish Muhammad cartoons row, organised by al-Muhajiroun's successor, were also convicted of soliciting to murder.

Mr Choudary claims that men like these have been denied free speech.

But what is clear is that there are also men who have attended al-Muhajiroun events who have gone further than words.

Omar Khyam was the ringleader of a major plot to bomb targets in south-east England and had attended al-Muhajiroun meetings in his home town of Crawley.

Another British man who carried out a suicide attack in Israel was also linked to Omar Bakri.

Islam4UK/al-Muhajiroun's leaders have a track record of planning events that never actually happen, but cause enormous media uproar.

On other occasions, supporters have spontaneously appeared on the streets, such as last year's tense scenes in Luton when they protested against a march by the Royal Anglian Regiment.

But while this may appear amateurish or attention-grabbing, counter-terrorism experts remain concerned that its angry message feeds into a broad strand of extremist Islamist activism.