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Jamaican cleric uses web to spread jihad message
Abdullah Faisal is one of the best known radical clerics on the Internet today. NPR set up an interview with Faisal weeks ago. But when he arrived to speak to us in Montego Bay last week, he demanded money for the interview. NPR refused. So he declined to speak on tape. But what he revealed in a conversation provided a peek into the mindset of an Internet cleric who is dancing along the line between free speech and incitement. He is a compact man who, on that day, wore a pale blue button down shirt, jeans and a blue skullcap. Faisal, 46, is a Jamaican convert to Islam and is the island's most infamous Muslim largely because of his alleged connections to terrorist plots around the world. While no one has accused him of playing a direct role in attacks, he has ties to shoe bomber Richard Reid, the so-called 20th Sept. 11 hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, and one of the suicide bombers in the 2005 London attacks. More recently his name was raised in connection with Shahzad, the Times Square bombing suspect, a Pakistani-American man who allegedly tried to ignite a car bomb in Times Square on May 1. Abdullah Faisal said he had a way of influencing people, "so the authorities are worried that I will send people to do things," explaining why he is being tracked by police since his return to the island earlier this year. "There are people who are inspired, and they take things into their own hands," he said. Faisal openly supports and preaches violent jihad. Nonbelievers steal Muslim resources and rape Muslim women, he said. And even if a good Muslim didn't want to fight, he has no choice but to do so because "jihad is brought to your doorstep." It is the same kind of message Faisal delivers in his lectures on the Internet. And his words worry intelligence officials. Posted by: ryuge 2010-05-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=297576 |