London a Longtime Haven for Radical Muslim Figures

Terrorism experts have long warned that Islamists espousing violence enjoy a haven in London, an assertion that has come into sharp focus again with Thursday's bombings in the British capital.
For years, Britain tolerated the presence of high-profile and outspoken Islamic clerics whose fiery sermons frequently extolled jihad against the West. Since 9/11, however, anti-terror legislation has been tightened, some groups have been outlawed, terror rings have been broken and some controversial figures have been arrested.

One of them, Egyptian-born Abu Hamza al-Masri, went on trial this week at London's Old Bailey courthouse, where he faces more than a dozen charges include inciting terrorism and racial hatred.

Al-Masri was formerly the imam at a North London mosque linked to confessed al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a U.S.-bound flight from Europe with explosives hidden in his shoe.

He also is wanted in the United States and Yemen on terror-related charges.

For years before his May 2004 arrest al-Masri used the Finsbury Park mosque as a base to speak for what he insisted were political causes.

Despite his radical rhetoric and close links to a group that claimed responsibility for attacks including the Oct. 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, it was only in 2003 that the authorities acted against him, stripping him of his British citizenship and barring him from preaching at the mosque.

Al-Masri then took to addressing his followers -- mostly young British- and foreign-born Muslims -- on the street outside the building.

Britain also detained another London-based extremist cleric, Abu Qatada, whose sermons were found in the 9/11 hijackers' apartment in Germany.

But other radical leaders remained free, among them Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian-born cleric who has promoted and praised violence against Israel, America and Britain for years.

Yael Shahar of the Israel-based International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) said that although London had been a center for Islamic extremism for years, the British security services only started taking the threat seriously after 9/11.

Before that, Shahar said, "the firebrand clerics who preached jihad and hatred of the West were dismissed as 'armchair warriors' by British intelligence."

Even since 9/11, however, critics have questioned Britain's apparent tolerance for highly-controversial Muslim figures.

As recently as last year, the government allowed a visit by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Egyptian cleric who has publicly voiced support for suicide bombers. London's leftwing Mayor Ken Livingstone, who has called al-Qaradawi a "man of peace," welcomed him as an honored guest.
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