HOMEGROWN EXTREMISTS
As the dragnet widens in Germany, France, and Britain, more attention is being focused on the significant network of "religious" political groups. The website of the Islamist, London-based al-Muhajiroun, Arabic for "the émigrés," offers a global map of the organization's branches in England, the U.S., Lebanon, and Pakistan. A press release issued by the group on September 16 screams, "USA at War with Islam." Among the group's slogans are "USA, You Will Pay" and "The Final Hour Will Not Come Until the Muslims Conquer the White House." Their goal is a world state under Islamic rule. Al-Muhajiroun's "spiritual" leader, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammed, is a Syrian cleric who after the September 11 attacks issued a fatwa branding Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf an apostate and non-Muslim. Earlier fatwas by the sheikh (who lives on the dole, courtesy of British taxpayers) denounce as apostates Muslims who run for office in Britain and brand as sinners those Muslims who vote in British elections. A February 2001 report in the Guardian noted that "Sheikh Bakri has openly admitted to being responsible for sending as many as 700 undergraduates to fight abroad, mostly in Kashmir."