One of UK’s most prolific extremist cells is regrouping

Even as fellow European countries worry about hardened Islamic State fighters returning from Syria and Iraq, Britain has another problem: the re-emergence of a homegrown militant cell, al-Muhajiroun, one of Europe’s most prolific extremist networks, which was implicated in the London bombings of 2005.

After those attacks, the British government passed a raft of counterterrorism laws and embarked on a crackdown against Islamic extremists. Many were sentenced to prison or restricted to halfway houses for 10 years and sometimes more.

But on Monday, a co-founder of al-Muhajiroun, Anjem Choudary, was photographed near his East London home wearing a long white robe and a black electronic ankle tag. Government officials confirmed that Choudary, one of the country’s most notorious radical Islamic preachers, had been released from a probation hotel after serving more than half of a lengthy prison term for inciting support of the Islamic State.

He remains under close monitoring, but he has begun the gradual process of becoming a free man. And he is not the only one.

Having served their time, many members of Choudary’s old network are being released from detention. Far from chastened, they have begun to remobilise, vowing to take on far-right extremists and renew their decadeslong campaign to eliminate democracy in Britain and establish a caliphate ruled by Shariah law, according to interviews with a handful of former members.

Founded in 1996, al-Muhajiroun, which has used various names over the years, has spent years effectively taunting the British security forces through its ability to continue operating despite being banned in 2006 for its links to terrorism. After a period of dormancy, the group is now remobilising by continuing to change its name, adopting lower-profile tactics, using encrypted apps and meeting in secret locations.

According to former members, areas where the network is regrouping include East London; Luton, a town north of the British capital; and the surrounding county of Bedfordshire.

“Muslims are being attacked all over the world,” said Laith, a former member of al-Muhajiroun who would only give his middle name for fear of prosecution. “Our mission is much more urgent now, and with Anjem and the other brothers out of jail, it’s time to regroup and come out harder than before.”

Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary addresses members of the media, during a protest supporting Shari'ah Law, in north London October 31, 2009. Reuters

For British authorities, the possibility of the group’s re-emergence is a deep concern. This month, Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, Britain’s domestic counterintelligence and security agency, issued a rare public warning about the continued risks of extremist networks and emphasised the threat posed by groups sympathetic to the Islamic State.

“In the UK, there remain individuals who are inspired” by Islamic State propaganda, he wrote in the newspaper The Evening Standard, “despite having shown no interest in traveling to Syria.”

For now, Choudary is prohibited from speaking in public or connecting with his old network. But several former members said his release from prison, along with that of other figures, had emboldened the group, which was linked to 25% of all Islamic terrorism-related convictions in Britain between 1998 and 2015.

“Some activists have started to meet again and are testing the waters as they re-engage with their activism,” said Michael Kenney, an associate professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, who spent years embedded with the group as part of the research for his book, “The Islamic State in Britain.”

It is hard to overstate the role Choudary has played in motivating Islamic extremists. This month, for instance, the BBC reported that one of the attackers behind the Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, was radicalised by Choudary after attending his sermons during a one-year study abroad program in 2006.

“No other British citizen has had so much influence over so many terrorists as Choudary,” said Nick Lowles, chief executive of a British anti-racist watchdog group, Hope Not Hate, which he says has identified 120 Islamic militants with links to the imam.

Most of those who were senior members of al-Muhajiroun said they remained under strict surveillance, with their electronic communications monitored, which was confirmed by the Home Office. As a result, they say they carry out their activities discreetly and avoid any mention of or association with the group’s former name.

The activists say they have shifted their recruitment tactics from provocative public preaching and demonstrations to secret internet forums and smaller group meetings in inconspicuous locations. If the group uses a name that has not been identified as that of a terrorist outfit, then the gatherings are legal.

Most members of the group abide by what they call a “covenant of security” that prohibits attacks on non-Muslims in their country of residence. But it is a matter of individual choice.

Many of the senior activists of the network who are now regrouping were monitored under the government’s Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act of 2011. That legislation provides the framework for a program that restricts the movements of individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism-related activities, through the use of electronic tags and overnight house arrest.

Some, however, said that being placed under the program’s restrictions had been more like a long vacation.

“It was amazing,” said a man who was subjected to the restrictions, flashing a picture of a brick property with a garden. “I was placed in a four-bedroom house by myself in the nicest part of Ipswich,” a town in eastern England.

“If anything, I got a good rest after years of hard work, got my energy back,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not legally allowed to talk about the program. “They spent all that money to achieve what in the end? I’m back on Twitter, back on Facebook, back with my brothers. I’m back in society, doing my thing.”

Some activists in the network denied that Choudary had encouraged acts of terrorism, claiming that he had directed their energy into an ideological struggle, not a violent one.

“The British government made a big mistake by putting Anjem in jail,” said Abdulla Muhid, a 42-year-old former member of al-Muhajiroun. “He believes in the covenant of security and was able to control the youth as they were getting their education from a learned person. Now, everyone is freelancing, getting radicalised through the internet.”

It is not clear how many activists belong to the network formerly known as al-Muhajiroun. Even during the group’s peak years in the late 1990s to early 2000s, it never had more than 200 dedicated members, according to Kenney of the University of Pittsburgh.

It is also unclear whether Choudary will reassert his leadership when his license conditions end in 2021. There have been group members who have challenged his leadership in the past, and some of those who are still active in the network suggested that he had been replaced. Still, many said that they were eagerly awaiting his return.

“People are waiting for Anjem to come out; they are waiting for that spark,” the activist who recently emerged from the restriction program said.

“These monitoring programs will do one of two things to you,” he added. “Either they will break you or make you hard-core. For me, I’m now rested and feeling more hard-core. I’m ready.”

© 2019 New York Times News Service