London sheikh calls for holy war

Scotland Yard detectives are examining a set of Islamic recruitment tapes designed to encourage young extremists to wage a holy war against Jews and the West.

The audio tapes were discovered on sale at several Muslim bookshops around London and passed on to the Met. They were made by an Islamic cleric, Abdullah el-Faisal, linked to shoe-bomb suspect Richard Reid and the so-called "20th hijacker", Zacarias Moussaoui.

Jamaican-born El-Faisal, who calls himself Shaikh Faisal, is having his right to live in Britain examined by the Home Office after he was arrested at Heathrow and held at Belmarsh prison last year for suspected immigration offences. He sells the tapes at £2 a time.

One audio tape has a picture of the World Trade Center in flames on the front cover. Police are investigating whether the material contravenes antiterror laws as they track al Qaeda supporters and sympathisers across Britain. They are believed to have been circulated in the UK for some time and include gloating references to the 11 September attacks on America.

The tapes call for a Jihad - or holy war - and urge the killing of Jews. Several were discovered at the Muslim Information Services bookshop opposite the radical Finsbury Park mosque on the Seven Sisters Road.

Inside the shop, which doubles as a Halal butcher's, shop assistants in combat jackets talked excitedly of "the day of judgment coming," as they eyed strangers suspiciously.

The shelves are packed with books, audio tapes and pamphlets on Islam - many containing graphic exhortations to young Muslims to join holy wars.

However, a spokesman for the shop said: "We don't have books like that. We know the man but we don't take controversial stuff from him, just the educational, although he is not a very distinguished scholar."

Today El-Faisal said: "It is not true they are inflammatory. All the quotations come from the Koran. I don't add anything new."

Moderate Muslim leaders accuse El-Faisal of sending his followers to recruit extremists. It is believed Reid and Moussaoui came into contact with his teachings at Brixton Mosque in the mid-Nineties.

The mosque has disowned his teachings and in the early Nineties wrote to the Home Office saying he should not be allowed to enter Britain claiming to be a cleric operating from the mosque, as he was then doing. He has since married a Pakistani woman living in Britain. El-Faisal lectures around the country calling for Muslims to kill "filthy Jews" as they are "evil to the core" and "deceitful by nature".

Since 11 September he has issued two tapes calling on all Muslim males to train for battle. In them he tells British schoolboys: "All of you in front of me are soldiers. Is it sensible for you to be a soldier and you don't know how to shoot a Kalashnikov? Therefore jihad training is compulsory for all of you."

He is also critical of America's treatment of prisoners, saying: "Those people in Camp X-Ray are put into pumpkin outfits because that's what toilet cleaners wear in Saudi Arabia."

El-Faisal studied religion for eight years in Saudi Arabia and has been visiting the UK since becoming the first Afro-Caribbean Muslim sheikh. During his lecture tours of Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry, Maidenhead and London he is reported to have built up a nationwide following thanks to his streetwise manner.

Every Saturday he addresses his followers and the curious at the Jagonari educational centre in Whitechapel, which has received assistance from the European Development Fund and Tower Hamlets council.

El-Faisal has denied knowing Richard Reid but declined to condemn suicide bombings, although he said he did not support attacks on civilians.

Home Office sources say the activities of Finsbury Park mosque leaders Omar Bakri Mohammed and Abu Hamza continue to be monitored. A Met spokesman said: "Any information passed to us will be assessed and fully and thoroughly investigated."

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