Is Hamas Responsible For London Bombings?

Friday, July 15, 2005
By: Tashbih Sayyed

As radical Islamist world celebrated the London atrocities and their leaders tried to justify London bombings as a logical consequence of British foreign policy, experts find it very hard to ignore Hamas's recent threats to launch suicide attacks in the United Kingdom.
Calling for more emphasis to be placed on tackling the causes of terrorism, the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), justified London bombings by demanding a re-evaluation of British policy. MAB said that the Muslim world has not forgotten what the West has done to it during the years of colonialism and therefore so long as the wrongs done in the past are not righted, terrorism will continue. It said, "With this in mind, we have to state once again that until the grievances of the Muslim world are addressed, the open wound from which blood trickled onto London will continue to exist. That wound is the injustices felt in Palestine, in Iraq and other parts of the Muslim world. It is the installing and propping up of dictators and stems from hundreds of years of colonialism. In the West, we have forgotten most of this – the Muslim world with its past hasn't.

The MAB continued, "Once this is addressed, global security will prevail. Re-evaluating our foreign policy is not as easy task but must be done. We can throw as many counter-terrorism measures at the problem, lock up people indefinitely, stop and search people indiscriminately, make them carry ID cards, but we are not even sticking elastoplasts on the gaping wound this way."

The way Muslim Association of Britain has tried to shift the blame away from the murderers on to the murdered, is typical of radical Islamists and their fronts. Faced with growing world pressure in the aftermath of 9/11, the radical Islamist fronts have changed their tactics. They now try to be the first to condemn the acts of terrorism without condemning the leadership and the ideology that is responsible for these atrocities by influencing hundreds of young Muslims to become terrorists.

The treachery of Islamists does not escape the eyes of those who understand them; these fundamentalists did not lose any time in issuing a fatwa (religious ruling) against Salman Rushdie but have found no reason to declare Osama bin Laden, Aiman al Zawahiri, Abu Musaa'b Zarqawi and many like them, apostates. No "Muslim' civil rights group in the USA or Europe and the UK has called for the heads of these terrorists. In fact, away from the public eyes, in the secure environment of their daily and weekly religious gatherings, they lionize them as modern day Salahuddin Ayyubis and exhort young Muslims to follow in their footsteps.

Organizations like Hamas are the direct beneficiaries of this ploy. By advancing arguments that the misfortunes, marginalization and disenfranchisement felt by the young Muslims is the direct result of the West's past and present injustices, Hamas has very successfully provoked a significant number of British young Muslims into taking up terrorism.

In view of Hamas's very elaborate and extensive network already in operation in the United Kingdom, the probability that this Arab terrorist group may have carried out the 7/7 acts of terrorism is very high. The fact that it has been now confirmed that the main perpetrators of the blast were of Pakistani stock should not make us ignore the fact that by casting its Palestinian plot in religious terms, Hamas has won the loyalties of every religious Muslim irrespective of his or her nationality. Hamas's Pakistan connections are well known. Being the base of universal Islamist terrorism, Pakistan provides, on a regular basis, advise, protection and leadership to the jihadis every where. Islamabad's present day official policy of supporting Bush's anti-terrorism campaign does not represent the popular "Islamic" passions that drives the Pakistani street – the Pakistani street belongs to Hamas.

Experts point out that Hamas does not act in isolation. It has always believed in networking. In Britain it works in conjunction with all other Islamist groups that share Arab yearning of erasing the Jewish state from the world map, one day. Because of this radical Islamist networking, Hamas has, at its disposal dozens of sleeper cells belonging to Afghans, Pakistanis, Moroccans, Philippine, Yemeni and Iranians in addition to several of its own cells. In addition to the organized cells, Hamas also enjoys the support of a vast pool of individuals in the UK who sympathize with its cause. This elaborate base of support gives it an enviable authority to carry out terrorism not only by itself but to provide material and logistic assistance to anyone willing to do so.

Just about 45 days preceding July 7, 2005 bombings, on Friday, May 13, 2005, a cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiras, affiliated with Hamas called in a sermon broadcast live on TV supervised by the Palestinian Authority, for exacting revenge against Great Britain. He said the day will come when Islam "will rule Britain".

And referring to Britain's role in the creation of the Jewish state, he said, "We hold this opportunity to hold Britain accountable and say there is revenge we can never forget. We cannot forego the revenge we want to exact from Britain. We hold Britain responsible for what happened in Palestine. Britain is the cause, till this very minute, of every drop of blood dripping in this land," Mudeiras told Arab viewers in the Palestinian Authority.

According to the listeners, Mudeiras set forth an Islamic program for world domination, claiming that Islam will ultimately prevail and rule both Britain and the United States.

"I say to you: You must look at our situation with an outlook of confidence in Allah's victory! If you help Allah (spread Islam), Allah will bring you victory. We once ruled the world and the day will come when, by god, we will rule the entire world.

"The day will come when we will rule the United States, the day will come when we will rule Britain, we will rule the whole world (and all will live in peace and comfort under our rule) except the Jews. The Jews will not live in peace and comfort under our rule. Treachery will keep being their nature throughout history. The day will come when the whole world will rid itself of the Jews."

Anybody who has visited Britain during the last decade has seen the growing influence of Hamas and other radical Islamist organizations there. The support for the Palestinian terrorist organization is so obvious that it is difficult to ignore. All of the Muslims that I had a chance to talk with were not Arabs. Many of them were Pakistanis and all of them supported Hamas cause passionately. All of them justified the killings of civilians on the basis that in the House of War (Dar ul Harb), there is no civilian - every one who is not a Muslim is an enemy who is supposed to be killed.

Discussing London bombings in an interview, aired on Al-Jazeera TV on July 8, 2005, Dr. Hani Al-Siba'I, the director of the Al-Maqreze Center for Historical Studies, said, "The term 'civilians' does not exist in Islamic religious law. There is no such term as 'civilians' in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar Al-Harb or not."

Experts are convinced that Hamas is quite capable of carrying out suicide bombings in Britain. "Hamas has many agents in Britain, some of them not so hidden. They are well-established there, and could carry out sophisticated and well-coordinated terror attacks if they wanted to," said a security expert. Aware of the fact that sooner or later, radical Islamists will be caught for their acts of terrorism, radical Islamists have already launched a campaign to create doubt and confusion in the minds of the Muslim street. Whereas the British authorities have been very cautious in stressing that they will not allow any community to be made a scapegoat, Islamist are saying that this is the doing of some western, Jewish or Christian agency.

Speaking before the authorities confirmed the Pakistan connection to the bombing, Dr. Hani Al-Siba'I said, "I think that British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a grave error when he spoke before the investigation and claimed that the perpetrators of these acts were acting in the name of Islam. I think that he will pay the price for this grave error in the future. No possibility should be ruled out. We do not rule out the possibility that it was done by the intelligence agency of another Western country hostile to Britain. We do not rule out countries... or some Zionist Americans who wanted to overshadow the G-8 summit."

According to WorldNetDaily, "There has been growing evidence the past few years of Hamas' infiltration of the UK Britain's "Sunday Times" reported in February Mohammed Kassem Sawalha, a Muslim leader appointed to help to run a major mosque in north London, is a former Hamas military commander. Sawalha, who arrived in Britain 15 years ago, told the "Times" he still supported Hamas.

The influence of Hamas was confirmed when Mohammed Hanif and Omar Sharif, the two suicide bombers who blew up Mike's Place pub in Tel Aviv in 2003, were found to be British citizens. They belonged to Al-Muhajiroun, another radical Islamist organization that supports Hamas openly. Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad. Al-Muhajiroun's leader has repeatedly exhorted young British Muslims to support Hamas and take up arms against infidels.

Britain is not only supplies young and angry Muslims for Hamas's jihad against the civilized world but it is also a rich source of funds. According to Center for Special Studies, Interpal, a major Islamic charity raising millions of dollars in Britain "to provide humanitarian aid to peoples of the Middle East" is a Hamas front that channels funds from British Muslims to support Hamas terrorism. Interpal was outlawed in the United States in August 2003 after being designated by a U.S. executive order "an entity that commits, threatens to commit or supports terrorism."

There is irrefutable evidence that Interpal funneled millions of dollars to Hamas charities in the West Bank, and has on its board several senior Hamas members. It is an every day experience in London to run into prominent Muslim leaders who collect money for Hamas.

London bombings have confirmed that Hamas in collaboration with non-Arab Muslim terrorist cells, has now expanded its circle of destruction to include societies beyond Israel. And the Europe and the United Kingdom is now faced with the choice of continuing their policy of appeasing the Arab terrorists and subjecting its citizens to every day Islamist horror or face the reality that radical Islam cannot be appeased – it can only be exterminated. Britain must not forget the advice of one of its own heroes, Winston Churchill, "those who appease the crocodile will simply be eaten last."