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Radical preacher Anjem Choudary posted anti-Western tweets hours before terror arrest Radical preacher Anjem Choudary among nine held for supporting banned terrorist group
(about 3 hours later)
Radical preacher Anjem Choudary accused the UK and the US of waging war against Islam and Muslims on Twitter hours before he was arrested this morning. Anjem Choudary, the radical activist and co-founder of the banned al-Muhajiroun group, was arrested today as efforts intensify to disrupt the ideological backers of young British Muslims travelling to fight in foreign conflicts.
Nine men were arrested by counter terror police in London today as part of an investigation into Islamist-related terrorism, Scotland Yard have confirmed. Mr Choudary was among nine men held on suspicion of supporting a banned terrorist group and encouraging terrorism. The arrests came shortly after Mr Choudary fired off a series of angry tweets after David Cameron called on MPs to back air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syria.
Choudary is understood to be one of nine men arrested this morning by members of the Metropolitan Police Service's Counter Terrorism Command on suspicion of being a member of a banned organisation and encouraging terrorism this morning. The arrests follow a sharp increase in raids by counter-terrorist officers, according to campaigners, after a speech by David Cameron announcing stronger measures to tackle suspected extremists.
Before being detained the former lawyer had posted a series of tweets claiming the UK/US interest in Syria “is not to defend people but to establish their own economic military strategic and ideological interests.” The authorities have come under pressure to act against Mr Choudary, a trained lawyer, whose inflammatory statements have been scrutinised by police but have not broken any laws.
A message on his Twitter account read: “The war being waged by the US/UK & co is a war against Islam & Muslims. The objective is to take Muslims away from the Shari'ah(Islam).”
FACT: The war being waged by the US/UK & co is a war against Islam & Muslims. The objective is to take Muslims away from the Shari'ah(Islam)FACT: The war being waged by the US/UK & co is a war against Islam & Muslims. The objective is to take Muslims away from the Shari'ah(Islam)
FACT: US/UK interest in Syria/Iraq is not to defend people but to establish their own economic military strategic and ideological interestsFACT: US/UK interest in Syria/Iraq is not to defend people but to establish their own economic military strategic and ideological interests
Al-Muhajiroun is understood to be the banned organisation in question, sources told the Press Association. Al-Muhajiroun, which he founded with Omar Bakri Mohammed and which advocates the establishment of an Islamic State in the UK, was banned in 2010 and has changed names several times to avoid prosecution. The group has a near 20-year history of encouraging terrorism, and one in five Islamism-inspired terrorists in the UK had links to the group, according to the Henry Jackson Society think-tank. However, critics point out that only three successful prosecutions have been made against supporters of such banned groups.
The group became a proscribed Islamist organisation in 2010. “The arrests are a welcome sign that the Government is taking the threat of extremist ideology seriously and beginning to effectively use the tools already available in the fight against terrorism in the UK,” said the think-tank’s researcher Hannah Stuart.
Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who were both jailed earlier this year for killing Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, were both seen at demonstrations organised by al-Muhajiroun. She suggested the officers could have made the arrests if “Jihadi John”, the suspected British militant who killed two American hostages on video, had been identified.
Choudary said he knew Adebolajo, who was pictured beside him at a rally in 2007, and the second founder of the group, Omar Bakri Mohammed, claimed that he had spoken to the future killer at meetings. New details have emerged of Ibrahim Kamara, the 19-year-old believed to have become the first British fighter killed as a result of US airstrikes in Syria. Mr Kamara’s mother claimed that her son had “met the wrong people” and was quickly radicalised. He travelled to Syria with a group of Brighton brothers to fight with the Jabhat al-Nusra group in Syria. One of the three brothers, Abdullah Deghayes, was killed in April. The brothers are related to Omar Deghayes, who was held at Guantanamo Bay for five years before he was released without charge.
Earlier this week, Choudary reportedly said he held no sympathy for Alan Henning, a volunteer aid worker who was captured by Isis militants in Syria. Dr Abuljalil Sajid, an imam who was ousted as head of a mosque after a power struggle with radicals in Brighton, said he had helped authorities extradite eight extremists from the city after the terror attacks of 7 July 2005. He said he had passed details of visits to the city by Mr Choudary and reported that Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza, found guilty of supporting terrorism at a US trial this year, had also visited the city.
A police spokesperson would not confirm or deny his detention. The Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremist group, said that al-Muhajiroun had set up stands in Brighton to seek supporters. “There’s often such a lot of [anti-extremism] focus on London that [other places] are forgotten,” said Jonathan Russell of Quilliam.
All nine are aged between 22 and 47 and are being held at stations in central London. The rights group Cage said it had documented 11 counter-terrorism raids in the past fortnight in London, without anybody being charged with terror offences. In the arrests police searched 18 addresses across London and one in Stoke-on-Trent.
Police said a number of residential, business or community premises are being searched as part of the investigation in London, along with an address in Stoke on Trent. “Al-Muhajiroun was proscribed four years ago and they’ve been promoting their views on Newsnight, said Amandla Thomas-Johnson, a spokeswoman for Cage.
The force said the arrests and searches are part of an ongoing investigation into Islamist related terrorism and are not in response to any immediate public safety risk. “It’s no secret why [the police chose] this of all days” – the eve of a Commons vote on airstrikes in Iraq.
Last month, Britain raised its international threat level to the second-highest level of "severe", meaning an attack is considered highly likely, while Prime Minister David Cameron has said the Islamic State militant group in Syria and Iraq poses the country's greatest ever security risk.