LONDRES : QUARTIER GENERAL DU TERRORISME ISLAMIQUE

ABU HAMZA'S MOSQUE NAMED AS GLOBAL CENTRE OF TERROR

An attack planning and propaganda production base

27th April 2011

By Emma Wall

VILE hate preachers helped turn Britain into the hub of al-Qaida’s global terror network.

Secret Guantanamo Bay files have identified UK-based extremists Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada as key recruiters.

American officials believe they were responsible for radicalising dozens of young men before sending them off to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The secret documents have disclosed how radical clerics turned London into a global terror blackspot after claiming asylum and living off state benefits.

And the capital’s reputation as a breeding ground for terrorism over two decades was so bad it was even dubbed “Londonistan”.

The notorious Finsbury Park Mosque, where Hamza indoctrinated followers, was highlighted as a “haven” for extremists.

The Guantanamo papers released by the controversial whistleblowing website WikiLeaks have revealed how the mosque served as “an attack planning and propaganda production base”.

They show that at least 35 inmates at the military prison passed through Britain before going off to fight allied forces in Afghanistan, thought to be more than any other Western nation.

A staggering 17 of them were British nationals or had been allowed to stay after claiming asylum.

Another 18 came to the UK from abroad before being radicalised and sent to terror training camps.

Four mosques in London and an Islamic Centre were also highlighted as places where Muslim men were brainwashed and turned into potential terrorists.

The mosques took in dozens of impressionable immigrants and churned them out as potential killers.

The Finsbury Park Mosque “served to facilitate the training of recruits” and was “a haven for Islamic extremists”.

Al-Qaida ringleader Qatada, 50, described as “Osama bin Laden’s ambassador in Europe”, was said to be “the most successful recruiter in Europe”.

Hamza, 52, was accused of encouraging “his followers to murder non-Muslims”. Both preachers are currently in jail.

In 2009 Qatada was awarded compensation after claiming his human rights had been breached after being locked up in the UK without trial.

Millions have also been paid by the Government to former Guantanamo inmates sent back to Britain, despite many still being declared dangerous by the US.

The leaked files also reveal an al-Qaida operative accused of bombing Christian churches and a hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was working for British intelligence at the same time.

Algerian Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, captured in Pakistan in 2003, was described by interrogators as a “facilitator, courier, kidnapper and assassin for al-Qaida”.

The Americans also believed he had “withheld important information from the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service and British Secret Intelligence Service and (was) a threat to the US and allied personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan”.

The US Government even appear to have suspected the BBC of being a “possible propaganda media network” for al-Qaida.

It came after a phone number for the World Service was found in the possession of several suspected terrorists.

But a spokesman for the corporation said: “Independence and impartiality are at the heart of all BBC World Service output.

“The service has interviewed represent-atives of organisations from all sides involved in the Afghan conflict, so it would not be surprising that a number believed to relate to the BBC Pashto service was in circulation.”

***************************************