For Immediate Release
Olympics mega-mosque linked to London and Glasgow car bomb plots
Arrested suspects radicalised by mosque promoters Tablighi Jamaat
“Government must ban construction of mega-mosque” says Cllr Alan Craig
Newham councillor Alan Craig today called on the government to formally ban the construction of a massive mosque on a site less than a mile from the main 2012 Olympic stadium at Stratford, east London.
Reports that Tablighi Jamaat - the fundamentalist Islamic sect who propose to build the mosque as their international headquarters - are directly responsible for radicalising two of the London and Glasgow car bomb suspects has added to suspicions that the sect are not the peaceable group they claim to be.
“The dangerous truth about Tablighi Jamaat is coming out. We must watch the gap between what they say and what they do,” said Cllr Craig, leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance group on Newham Council, who lives with his young family a mile from the mosque site. ”It will be a horrendous security nightmare if they are allowed to build this large mosque so close to the Olympics.”
In the last few days friends and neighbours of Kafeel and Saheel Ahmed in Bangalore, India, have told how the brothers changed dramatically a few years ago when they joined Tablighi Jamaat. They were reportedly barred from the local mosque because they insisted on praying in the prescribed Tablighi manner. Kafeel is now in a critical condition in Glasgow Royal Infirmary with 92% burns following the failed attempt to blow up a flaming Jeep at Glasgow Airport last Saturday. Saheel remains under arrest in Paddington Green police station.
Furthermore it is also significant that a number of suspects arrested in connection with last August’s Atlantic airline terror plot too were followers of Tablighi Jammat. Friends and families of Assad Sarwar and Waheed Zuman have spoken publicly about how Tablighi Jamaat changed the two men and radicalised their religious commitment prior to their alleged involvement in the planned atrocity.
7/7 suicide bombers Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer are reckoned to have attended Tablighi Jamaat’s European headquarters mosque in Dewsbury, west Yorkshire, where Tanweer also attended Tabligh’s madrassa or Islamic school. And Richard “Shoe bomber” Reid worshipped at a Tablighi mosque.
“Tablighi Jamaat radicalises and dehumanises Muslim young men,” said Alan Craig. “They have a growing and ominous track record as further young men follow Tabligh teaching about Islam and then go on to plan horrendous atrocities.”
Cllr Craig also demonstrated the radicalising effect of Tablighi Jamaat by pointing to a Muslim publication that highlights the dramatic impact of Tablighi teaching on individuals and families. See Islamic Research Foundation International webpage:“Tablighi Jamaat is large, powerful, ambitious, secretive and apparently well-funded,” said Alan Craig. “They have deliberately stayed below the radar screen for too long. They must be now fully investigated by the government. And they must be banned from building their mega-mosque.”
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