Shariah Project

Al-Muhajiroun ( ar, المهاجرون, "The Emigrants") is a proscribed militant network based in Saudi Arabia. The founder of the group was Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian who previously belonged to ''Hizb ut-Tahrir''; he was not permitted to re-enter Britain after 2005. According to ''The Times'', the organisation has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia, and antisemitism. The group became notorious for its September 2002 conference " The Magnificent 19", praising the September 11, 2001 attacks. The network mutates periodically so as to evade the law; it operates under many different aliases.

The group in its original incarnation operated openly in the United Kingdom from 14 January 1986 until the British Government announced an intention ban in August 2005. The group preemptively "disbanded" itself in 2005 to avoid this; two aliases used by the group were proscribed by the British Home Secretary under the Terrorism Act 2006: ''Al Ghurabaa'' and ''The Saviour Sect''. Further proscriptions followed with the Terrorism Act 2000 where ''Islam4UK'' was proscribed as an ''Al-Muhajiroun'' alias and ''Muslims Against Crusades'' followed in 2011. More recent aliases have included ''Need4Khilafah'' and the ''Shariah Project'', proscribed in 2014, just before prominent members, including Anjem Choudary were sent to prison (they have subsequently been released).

The organisation and its activities have been condemned by larger British Muslim groups such as the Muslim Council of Britain and similar groups which represent the majority of Islam in the United Kingdom'', whose British-based branch does not advocate violence against the United Kingdom and thus has not been proscribed.

Individual members of ''Al-Muhajiroun'' have been implicated in a number of terrorist attacks, including the murder of Lee Rigby (Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale), the 2017 London Bridge attack (Khuram Butt), and the 2019 London Bridge stabbing (Usman Khan). Some members, such as Zacarias Moussaoui, have been implicated in controversies surrounding ''Al-Qaeda''.

It has also operated a Lahore safe house for visiting radicals. Another member, Siddhartha Dhar, became an executioner for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Names

Since they were forced to disband in 2004–2005, ''Al-Muhajiroun'' network has adopted a variety of different names to try and work around British law; each time their aliases have been subsequently proscribed under the various Terrorism Acts. Typically, the sitting Home Secretary at the time names the specific organisation as proscribed; for example in 2010, Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnston named ''Islam4UK'' in relation to the Wootton Bassett affair.bbc.co.uk: "Islam4UK Islamist group banned under terror laws"
BBC, 12 January 2010 The organisation has used the following names; ''Al Ghurabaa'' (2004–2006), ''The Saved Sect'' (2005–2006), ''Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah'' (2005–2009), ''Islam4UK'' (2009–2010), ''Muslims Against Crusades'' (2010–2011) and since then ''Need4Khilafah'', the ''Shariah Project'' and the ''Islamic Dawah Association''.bbc.co.uk: "Ministers ban suspected aliases of banned extremist group"
BBC, 26 June 2014

History

Origins in ''Hizb ut-Tahrir'': 1983–1996

The network originated in the Middle East, as a result of the life and works of Omar Bakri Muhammad.Police raid Islamic group
BBC News , 30 July 2003 , accessed 2 March 2016 Born in Aleppo, Syria to a wealthy Sunni family, during his youth the state was taken over by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region; an organisation which promoted Arab socialism and Arab nationalism, rather than an Islamic outlook for the country. Although nominally secular, many of the ruling Ba'athists were drawn from the Alawite (Shia) minority; including Hafez al-Assad, who became President of Syria in 1971; despite Syria being a majority Sunni country. Some of the religiously inclined Syrian Sunnis, including Omar Bakri, joined the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria (up to 40,000 Muslim Brothers died in the 1982 Hama massacre, though Omar Bakri himself did not take part in the rising).

Omar Bakri lived for sometime in Beirut, Lebanon and then Cairo, Egypt. He continued to join a number of Islamist organisations while studying, including joining the ''Hizb ut-Tahrir'' while in Beirut (the founder of the organisation, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, had died in Lebanon in 1977). Omar Bakri moved to Saudi Arabia to study at the Umm al-Qura University in Mecca and the Islamic University of Madinah. In the Kingdom, ''Hizb ut-Tahrir'' was a banned organisation. According to Omar Bakri's account of events, the nearest branch based in Kuwait would not allow him to create a branch in Saudi Arabia and suspended him from the organisation, despite the fact that, by 1983, he had gathered some 38 followers who endorsed creating a Saudi Arabia-based branch.
Subsequently, at Jeddah, he created his own group called ''Al-Muhajiroun'' on 3 March 1983, "the 59th anniversary of the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate." Sadek Hamid, a scholar of Islamic politics, has claimed that this was just a front for ''Hizb ut-Tahrir''. While living in Saudi Arabia he worked for ''Eastern Electric'' owned by Shamsan and Abdul-Aziz as-Suhaybi in Riyadh, and then Bakri moved to its Jeddah branch. ''Al-Mahajiroun'' was banned in Saudi Arabia in January 1986 and Omar Bakhri was subsequently arrested in Jeddah, but fled to the United Kingdom while released on bail. After spending some time in the United States to study, he returned to Britain where he became head of ''Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain''.''Hizb ut-Tahreer'', Dr. Abdur Rahman Dimishqia, (Istanbul: Maktabah ul-Ghurabaa', 1417 AH/1997 CE)

''Al-Muhajiroun'' in Britain: 1996–2004

Bakri's involvement in ''Hizb ut-Tahrir'' ended on 16 January 1996 when he was dismissed by the group's global leadership; following this he reinstated ''Al-Muhajiroun'' in early 1996. In the eyes of the Middle Eastern leadership of ''Hizb ut-Tahrir'', Omar Bakri had become a liability to their organisation due to various extravagant statements he had made; justifying the assassination of Prime Minister John Major, stating that Queen Elizabeth II would convert to Islam and telling Bosniaks to reject American food aid during the Yugoslav Wars and to "eat Serbs" instead. Omar Bakri Muhammad and his group was the subject of a ''Channel 4'' documentary entitled the ''Tottenham Ayatollah'' in 1997, in which Jon Ronson, an investigative journalist of Jewish-background followed Omar Bakri and ''Al-Muhajiroun'' around for a year. A young Anjem Choudary also featured as the group's Deputy. The documentary mentions mainstream Muslim groups (who felt that their activities were leading to a demonisation of all Muslims), Conservative MP Rupert Allason, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and even Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt criticising the group. The sitting Foreign Secretary in the Conservative Party government; Malcolm Rifkind; responded to international concerns by saying as ''Al-Muhajiroun'' had not broken any specific laws they could not be prosecuted. Omar Bakri openly discussed living on Jobseeker's Allowance and the group publicly protested in favour of the Sharia, against homosexuality and other aspects in contemporary British society that it considered to be immoral. The group claimed that they were collecting donations for groups in conflict with the State of Israel, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, but none of these groups have ever confirmed connections or if any money came to them. Yotam Feldner of the ''Middle East Media Research Institute'', a pro-Israeli group, cites reports from Egyptian newspaper ''Al-Ahram Weekly'' in November 1998, whereby Omar Bakri is alleged to have presented himself as a spokesman for Osama bin Laden's "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders."

During the 1990s, a number of radical Islamists who were wanted by the authorities in a number of Middle Eastern countries sought refuge in the United Kingdom, particularly London, leading some such as the French intelligence services to ridicule the situation as "Londonistan". Particularly close to ''Al-Muhajiroun'' was the Egyptian Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was the imam of Finsbury Park Mosque from 1997 until 2003 (since that time the mosque has been reopened under new authorities who are not affiliated to these tendencies). Abu Hamza had previously been an adviser to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group and had his own group called "Supporters of Shariah" which held joint protests with ''Al-Muhajiroun''. Abu Qatada; who was associated with the Jordanian group ''Jaysh Mohammad'' and would later write sympathetically about the activities of Osama bin Laden; spoke at a ''Al-Muhajiroun'' meeting in November 1999 to raise funds for '' mujahideen'' fighters in Chechnya (as part of the Second Chechen War). Contacts were also maintained between Omar Bakri's group and other London exiles who spoke at ''Al-Muhajiroun'' gatherings; Yassir al-Sirri of Vanguards of Conquest and Mohammad al-Massari of ''Hizb ut-Tahrir''. In the first two years of its new existence, the group did not advocate violence against the United Kingdom; Omar Bakri claimed in London-newspaper ''Asharq Al-Awsat'', this was because he had a "covenant of peace" with the British government when they granted him asylum (though while still part of ''Hizb ut-Tahrir'', Omar Bakri had earlier made comments in 1991 about a potential assassination of Prime Minister John Major, during the Gulf War). In the early days of New Labour, Home Secretary Jack Straw even appointed ''Al-Muhajiroun'' activist Makbool Javaid (brother-in-law of future Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan) to a newly formed Race Relations Forum.

This situation changed in September 1998, as seven members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, including Hani al-Sibai, Sayyed Ajami and Sayyed Ahmed Abdel-Maqssuod, were arrested by the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch as part of ''Operation Challenge'' for alleged violations of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1989. This was in the aftermath of the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, a joint operation by Egyptian Islamic Jihad and ''Al-Qaeda'' (the two would merge in 2001), killing 224 people. The "Londonistan" situation, as it was known, had long being criticised by some of the leading Arab world governments such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and others, who regarded the groups as a threat to their national security also. After the arrests, Omar Bakri described Britain in ''Al-Ahram Weekly'' as "the spearhead of blasphemy that seeks to overthrow Muslims and the Islamic caliphate" and claimed that the seven men had been "lulled and betrayed into believing they could seek sanctuary in Britain from their corrupt regimes", claiming that Britain was motivated by a desire for "future economic favours" from the likes of Saudi Arabia. Six months after the arrests, ''Al-Muhajiroun'' and others staged a demonstration in front of 10 Downing Street to protest the continued incarceration of the seven men and they, including al-Sibai were eventually released. Tony Blair, who was the Labour Party's Prime Minister at the time of the arrests, two decades later in 2017 accused al-Sibai of having radicalised members of the so-called " Beatles" group of ISIS militants, including "Jihadi John" (Mohammed Emwazi) and El Shafee Elsheikh.

In 1998, the so-called "Aden Ten" (including eight British citizens) were arrested, while plotting attacks in Yemen. Omar Bakri boasted of connections, but the men were more directly inspired by Abu Hamza and his idea of Yemen as a starting point for an "Islamic Revolution." Two years later in 2000, the first British-born suicide bomber Mohammed Bilal Ahmed of Birmingham, blew himself up at an Indian Army barracks in Jammu and Kashmir, killing nine people. Omar Bakri described Ahmed as a student of his. Domestically, on university campuses, Britain's National Union of Students banned ''Al-Muhajiroun'' in March 2001 after complaints were made about literature promoted by the group (particularly pertaining to Jews) and the advertisement of militant camps; Manchester University and the University of Birmingham were flashpoints for this. On an international level, closer attention was placed on Islamist groups following the September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by ''Al-Qaeda'' against the United States and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan which followed to overthrow the Taliban-government which was hosting ''Al-Qaeda'' (the United Kingdom under Blair's leadership joined as part of the ISAF). In the immediate aftermath of the start of the War in Afghanistan, ''Al-Muhajiroun'' spokesman Abdul Rahman Saleem (born Rahman Yahyaei) made statements proclaiming that terrorist attacks against government targets in Britain and even killing the Prime Minister would be legitimate acts.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, ''Al-Muhajiroun'' mostly focused on what they claimed was the injustice of the subsequent invasion of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and often held meetings where the flag of the Taliban; a white flag with the ''shahada'' in black; was displayed. According to a report ''Hope not Hate'', a self-described anti-fascist group closely linked to the British Labour Party, Omar Bakri bragged of connections between ''Al-Muhajiroun'' and the so-called " Tipton Three" (Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul), who were arrested in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban and held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Richard Reid the so-called "Shoe Bomber" during the failed 2001 shoe bomb attempt was radicalised at the AM-linked Finsbury Park Mosque. Aftab Manzoor, Afzal Munir and Mohamed Omar who died in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban and the Pakistan-based ''Harkat-ul-Mujahideen

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