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04/26/2004: "Recruiting for al-Qaeda, in London of all places "

The New York Times ran an article today that ought to send British officials running to courts for deportation orders–not that they'd get them. For instance, here's a Muslim leader calling his troops to jihad:

On Thursday evening, at a tennis center community hall in Slough, west of London, their leader, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad, spoke of his adherence to Osama bin Laden. If Europe fails to heed Mr. bin Laden's offer of a truce—provided that all foreign troops are withdrawn from Iraq in three months—Muslims will no longer be restrained from attacking the Western countries that play host to them, the sheik said.

"All Muslims of the West will be obliged," he said, to "become his sword" in a new battle. Europeans take heed, he added, saying, "It is foolish to fight people who want death—that is what they are looking for."

That "truce" offer has already been rejected by every Western European government for the sham that it is. Why foreigners, or even British citizens, are allowed to incite to violence without penalty is bewildering. The article indicates, for instance, that the government has been trying to strip al Qaeda recruiters of citizenship and/or deport them for years, without being able to get court approval. I've got no truck with laws abridging even hateful speech, but incitement to violence is another story. Fortunately, by no means all of Britain's Muslims are supporters of the fanatics:

Muhammad Sulaiman, a stalwart of the mainstream Central Mosque here, was penniless when he arrived from the Kashmiri frontier of Pakistan in 1956. He raised money to build the Central Mosque here and now leads a campaign to ban Al Muhajiroun radicals from the city's 10 mosques.

"This is show-off business," he says in accented English. "I don't want these kids in my mosque."

Other community leaders look to the government to do something, if only to help prevent the demonization of British Muslims, or "Islamophobia," as some here call it.

"I think these kids are being brainwashed by a few radical clerics," said Akhbar Dad Khan, another elder of the Central Mosque. He wants them prosecuted or deported. "We should be able to control this negativity," he said.

What is it about "we want to destroy you" that the West doesn't seem to understand?