Problems With 1 NYC Mosque

[Annie]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,29389-2235728,00.html

The Times June 21, 2006

British suicide bomber 'in link to New York mosque'
From Daniel McGrory in New York
AN AMERICAN al-Qaeda operative who was a close associate of the leader of the July 7 bombers was recruited at a New York mosque that British militants helped to run.

British radicals regularly travelled to the Masjid Fatima Islamic Centre, in Queens, to organise sending American volunteers to jihadi training camps in Pakistan.

Investigators reportedly found that Mohammad Sidique Khan had made calls to the mosque last year in the months before he led the terrorist attack on London that killed 52 innocent people.

New York police have confirmed that they are still trying to trace the real identities of British Muslims who have been making trips since before September 11, 2001.

A new book, The One Percent Doctrine, by Ron Suskind, claims that FBI and CIA agents discovered that Khan had made trips to the US and was in contact with American Muslim extremists on the East Coast.

Mohammad Junaid Babar, one recruit from the Masjid Fatima Islamic Centre, has told US intelligence officials that he met Khan in a jihadi training camp in Pakistan in July 2003. He claims that the pair became friends as they studied how to assemble explosive devices.

Babar, 31, a computer programmer, says that it was at the Masjid Fatima centre that he became a radical. He has admitted in a US court to supplying money and military materials to a high-ranking al-Qaeda official at the jihadi camp in South Waziristan, close to the Afghan border. Babar moved to Britain after his month at the camp. FBI agents who arrested him in Queens in April 2004 say that he had been under surveillance “for some time” but so far they have not revealed all that Babar told them about Khan.

Raymond Kelly, the New York Police Commissioner, said that a number of radical British organisations have been active in recruiting followers and raising money in the city.

He named the al-Muhajiroun group, run by the militant preacher Omar Bakri Mohammad, who used to live in London but is now banned from entering the country.

Commissioner Kelly said that police had been watching the activities of al-Muhajiroun before Bakri called for the group to disband in 2004. “Before it was dissolved, Al-Muhajiroun was political and was aimed at a college student constituency,” he said.

Syed Jamil Ahmed, who helps to run the mosque, denied that the centre was used for recruiting terrorists. “Boys who have prayed here may have gone to Afghanistan or Pakistan, but that is a personal choice, not something that we recommended,” he said. He remembered a number of “English boys” visiting the mosque, but that they had neither “come to teach, nor recruit anybody”. He said: “Perhaps they were just in New York on holiday and wanted to pray or visit somewhere to talk to fellow Muslims.” On being shown a photograph of Khan, Mr Ahmed, who was educated in England, said that he did not recognise him or the name.

“I’m afraid I don’t know the identities of all the English boys who dropped in here over the past few years,” he said.

Mr Ahmed, a small, grey-haired and bearded figure, said that he had never heard of Mohammad Junaid Babar either.

In return for a lesser jail sentence, Babar reportedly told the FBI the names of other American Muslims who reportedly went to terrorist camps after attending this centre.

Among them is alleged to be Syed Hashmi, 26, who was born in Pakistan but was brought up in Queens. Mr Hashmi was arrested as he tried to fly from Heathrow to Pakistan this month after American authorities requested his extradition.