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Portal on how to
break bones shut down A Web site offering young Muslims the chance to learn all about explosives and the "art of bone breaking" was shut down this week under a new British crackdown on Islamic extremists.
The 43-year-old alleged Sakina instructor — police refuse to name him — is one of two men being held on terrorism charges in Britain as it tightens the net on militants. Britain’s clampdown
follows the September 11 hijack attacks on the USA. Some of the 19
alleged hijackers are said to have passed through Britain in the
months before the attacks. |
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The Website said Sakina "prides itself on high-risk jobs in the former Soviet Union and in the civil war arenas of the world" and prepared Muslims to "defend themselves" by training them in self-defence and outdoor survival strategies. "Islam is not an aggressive belief but we have the right and the obligation to defend ourselves," founder Mohammed Jameel told Reuters in 1999. "We are not going to escalate violence because we’re restricted in what we do by Islamic law." Virtual violence was another matter. Describing its course as the "ultimate jihad experience," the site offered participants the chance to shoot off 3,000 live rounds at a US firing range, "improvise explosive devices" or learn all about bone crushing. Jameel was not available for comments. No one answered the phone at Sakina’s London office. The shutdown is the latest sign of a clampdown on militancy in Britain, long criticised as a haven for Islamic extremists. Along with the Sakina instructor, the police have detained Algerian pilot Lotfi Raissi, who is accused by the FBI of teaching the hijackers to fly the planes that crashed into US landmarks last month. Raissi, due to appear in a London court on Friday, is expected to be questioned soon by FBI agents in Britain. Another Algerian, arrested in central England in connection with planned terror attacks in France and Belgium, was extradited to France last week. All those arrested were charged under new anti-terrorism laws that came into effect in February, making it an offence to incite anyone to commit an act of terrorism, including murder, or to support anyone who committed a terrorism act. A suspect in an alleged plot to blow up the US embassy in Paris told French investigators he recruited several militants at British mosques. Britain has stepped up monitoring of the activities of outspoken self-styled Islamic clerics like Syrian-born Sheikh Omar Barki Mohammed who issued a fatwa, or religious edict, ordering the death of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf has supported
the USA in its campaign to force Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to hand
over Osama bin Laden, Washington’s prime suspect in last month’s
attacks. |
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Police sources told
Reuters that the closure of the London-based Sakina Securities Web
site (www.sakina.fsbusiness.co.uk) followed the arrest on Monday of
one of its instructors on terrorism charges.