Omar Bakri Mohammed, "the godfather of British terrorism" (updated)
By Andrew Cochran
The "Sunday Times's" Nick Fielding, a veteran and respected reporter on terrorism, has an excellent article on Omar Bakri Mohammed as the "godfather of British terrorism" - "It is becoming clear that al-Muhajiroun (ALM), the group formed by Bakri in London less than a decade ago, has played a pivotal role in radicalising young Britons who have gone on to wreak terror in Britain and across the world. The Sunday Times has identified more than a dozen members of ALM who have taken part in suicide bombings or have become close to Al-Qaeda and its support network."
The CT Blog Experts have discussed Bakri's influence in numerous posts here. See Zeyno Baran's study, "Hizb ut-Tahrir: Islam’s Political Insurgency," also linked in the Counterterrorism Library in left sidebar (Acrobat file), on Hizb and ALM's roles in Islamic terrorism; Evan Kohlmann's July 13 and July 11 posts about Bakri; Walid Phares's July 17 post; and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross's January 20 post on Bakri's incendiary webcasts on PalTalk, on which Bakri said, "We have Sheikh Osama bin Laden, our emir, and he is admired by every single person so that is the victorious group." UPDATE: See also today's NYT story "Radical cleric predicted a second London attack" on the International Herald Tribune site about Bakri.