ISIS Recruitment in London Mosque Uncovered

Excerpt of article originally published under the title, “ISIS in London: How Many More Times Can We Say ‘I Told You So’?”

One of the largest mosques on the continent, the East London Mosque can accommodate more than 7,000 worshippers.

Following today’s news that four young jihadi brides who departed the UK for Syria were radicalised and recruited at the East London Mosque, allegedly at the hands of those linked to the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), Britain’s “Islamophobes” will once again be able to say with one voice, “We told you so.”

The Mail on Sunday reports:

Islamic leaders and some of their family members blamed the internet for grooming the four schoolgirls, who were all pupils at Bethnal Green Academy in Tower Hamlets, East London.

But now it is claimed that Sharmeena was first radicalised inside the East London Mosque, Whitechapel, allegedly by women from a group called Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE). She then allegedly groomed three friends to join her at the meetings.

This is, of course, the same IFE that so many of us had warned about, specifically with regards East London, radicalisation, and the now-terminated mayoralty in Tower Hamlets of Lutfur Rahman. Hats off particularly to Andrew Gilligan and Ted Jeory, who have been banging on about this for longer than most.

Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, led by Gilligan, even uncovered a transcript of a 2009 IFE recruitment course, which admitted:

Our goal is not simply to invite people and give da’wah [call to the faith]. Our goal is to create the True Believer, to then mobilise those believers into an organised force for change who will carry out da’wah, hisbah [enforcement of Islamic law] and jihad [struggle]. This will lead to social change and iqamatud-Deen [an Islamic social, economic and political order].

It’s therefore very little surprise to some of us that IFE is being implicated in the latest radicalisation revelations. This is a group that has prided itself on its takeover of swathes of East London and that counts amongst its political successes not just the election of Mr. Rahman, but also that of George Galloway to Parliament in 2005.

The group’s spokesman, Azad Ali, is known for opposing democracy in favour of Sharia law, has praised the now-deceased Al Qaeda preacher Anwar Al Awlaki, and has endorsed the killing of British and American soldiers. Curiously, he worked at the heart of the civil service during the last Labour government.

Islamic Forum of Europe spokesman Azad Ali

But the rabbit hole goes deeper than that and starts to incorporate some of our friends on the hard left. Because Ali is also the vice chairman of Unite Against Fascism, a group that masquerades as defending free speech and human rights but has one of the most blunt, ugly, and fascistic approaches to political campaigning of all the campaign groups in Britain today.

Its sister organisation, Hope not Hate, chases around right-wing politicians, acting as a political party, and publishes spurious reports and demands for the British government to curtail freedom of speech.

But Unite Against Fascism’s allegiance with an Islamist sympathiser may help to explain how the terrorist murderer of a British soldier came to speak at one of their rallies in 2009.

And Ali, despite all this, still enjoys the support of numerous Labour MPs, as well as Conservative Party peer Baroness Warsi, whom Prime Minister David Cameron put at the heart of government during the last government. Indeed, the prime minister himself is a signatory to Unite Against Fascism’s founding documents.

So now what?

Well, if the allegations against IFE as an “ISIS in London” recruiter and against the East London Mosque hold up, there surely has to be cause to proscribe the group, disrupt its recruitment, and even demand full structural change of the mosque’s management and transparency. Either that or, given its history, shut it down altogether.

Raheem Kassam is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and editor-in-chief of Breitbart London

Raheem Kassam is the former editor-in-chief of Breitbart London. From a Muslim family, he is devoted to combating radical Islam and exposing anti-Western activists and trends. He is credited with the downfall of Baroness Jenny Tonge and Liberal Democrat MP David Ward. In 2012, Mr. Kassam broke the Muslim Patrols story that made international headlines, and he has had a steady stream of other noteworthy media stories. He is the former chief of staff to UKIP leader Nigel Farage. He founded the counter-extremism watchdog Student Rights and served as the communications director at the Henry Jackson Society. He co-launched The Commentator website as well as founding TrendingCentral.com. He is featured regularly on the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4, Al Jazeera, and many other television channels and has been an op-ed contributor for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, Jewish Chronicle, and Times of Israel.
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I recently witnessed something I haven’t seen in a long time. On Friday, August 16, 2024, a group of pro-Hamas activists packed up their signs and went home in the face of spirited and non-violent opposition from a coalition of pro-American Iranians and American Jews. The last time I saw anything like that happen was in 2006 or 2007, when I led a crowd of Israel supporters in chants in order to silence a heckler standing on the sidewalk near the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts. The ridicule was enough to prompt him and his fellow anti-Israel activists to walk away, as we cheered their departure. It was glorious.