Muslims declare sovereignty over U.S., UK

Muslims declare sovereignty over U.S., UK
Hear Islamic leaders in London: 'Queen Elizabeth, go to ...

Across town from the site of the recent attempted car-bomb attacks, several thousand Muslims gathered in front of the London Central Mosque to applaud fiery preachers prophesying the overthrow of the British government – a future vision that encompasses an Islamic takeover of the White House and the rule of the Quran over America.

"One day my dear Muslims," shouted Anjem Choudary, "Islam will govern Britain!"

Choudary was a co-founder of Al Muhajiroun, the now-banned group tied to suspects in the July 7, 2005, London transport bombings and a cheerleader of the 9/11 attacks.

"Democracy, hypocrisy," Choudary chanted as the crowd echoed him. "Tony Blair, terrorist! Tony Blair, murderer! Queen Elizabeth, go to ...."

The Muslim leader's charge, along with interviews with protesters and a "literal foaming-at-the-mouth" diatribe by another speaker, were captured on tape June 22 by nationally syndicated talk radio host Rusty Humphries.

Humphries, who was in London with WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein, recorded angry Muslim leader Abu Saif, who kept his voice at a fever pitch through declarations such as: "Brothers and sisters, make no mistake. Make no mistake. The British government, the queen, the MPs in this country, they are enemies to you, enemies to Allah and enemies to the Muslims."

Abu Saif is believed to be a member of the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation, which states its aim is to unify Muslims and establish Islamic rule over the world. The group's Cambridge cell reportedly had tried to recruit the Iraqi doctor now suspected of mounting the attack on Glasgow's airport June 30. The failed car-bomb assault followed two similar attempts in London the previous day.

Abu Saif spoke with disdain of Blair's appointment as a special envoy to the Middle East, issuing an apparent threat.

"Inshallah," meaning "Allah willing," he told the crowd, Blair will "go to the Middle East as an envoy, and he'll come back in a box. Inshallah. What box that is, we leave that up to you."

Humphries estimated nearly 3,000 Muslims were gathered in front of the mosque in north London June 22, after Friday prayers, to protest Queen Elizabeth's knighting of Indian author Salman Rushdie, the target of a death-sentence fatwa for "insulting" Islam's prophet Muhammad in his 1988 book "The Satanic Verses."

For Humphries, the response of the Muslims at Islam's largest house of worship in the UK was telling.

"Not one said, 'You're not speaking for me' or 'Not in my name.' They stood there and watched and applauded," he told WND.

Like the UK, Humphries said, the U.S. has three major vulnerabilities to patient, fundamentalist Muslims who believe their purpose for living in the West is to help fulfill Islamic prophecies: The loss of border control, the inability to say no and lack of assimilation.

"I feel like I'm Rusty Revere. I'm out there yelling the Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming," he said. "But we don't want to hear it. We don't want to hurt people's feelings."

Humphries' interview with Abu Saif underscored the radically different vision many of Britain's citizens have for the country's future.

The Muslim leader said he does not believe in democracy and insists there is no such thing as freedom of religion, "because freedom is an absolute term."

"Are we to say that Muslims can fully practice religion in America," he asked in an attempt to explain. "Say, for instance, I was a Muslim in America. Could I call for the destruction of the American government and establishment of an Islamic state in America? No. So where is the freedom of religion? There is none."

Humphries asked: "Do you call for that?"

"Of course," he replied, "we want Islam to be a source of governance for all of mankind. And we also believe that one day America will be ruled by Islam."

Abu Saif explained Islam, like Christianity, has a prophetic tradition.

"One of the prophecies of the message of Muhammad was the hour will never come, i.e., the last day – which you also believe in – will never come until a group of the Muslims … will rise and conquer the white house."

The reference, many Muslims believe today, is to America's symbol of executive power.

Islamic leaders in the U.S. largely have been careful to not assert publicly the Muslim belief that Islam ultimately will gain worldwide supremacy. As WND reported, Omar Ahmad, the founder of a prominent U.S.-based Islamic lobby group, denies a newspaper report that he told a group of Muslims in the San Francisco Bay area they are in America not to assimilate but to help bring about Islam's rule over the nation.

Like other protesters, Abu Saif presented a typical list of grievances Muslims have with the U.S. and Britain, such as the nations' part in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wars in Afghanistan and Iran.

But the Islamic leader admitted he believes Jews and Christians will always hate Muslims, because Allah has said it is so.

"There's nothing we can do to be friends?" Humphries asked.

Abu Saif replied: "There is something you can do to be friends. You can become Muslim."

He also had a simple solution to the conflict in the Holy Land.

"We want the Jews to leave Israel, and to hand the whole of Israel, not just Gaza and the West Bank – the whole of Israel to the Muslims. Only then will the Muslims stop."

'Politics of terror'

BBC-TV last week highlighted Hizb ut-Tahrir in a program called "Politics of Terror," noting "the attempted terrorist attacks on London and Glasgow have once again focused attention on the rise of political Islam."

If al-Qaida is to be defeated, the narrator said, "the key battlefield is in the realm of ideas. Today's would-be suicide bombers are almost invariably yesterday's campaigners for political Islam."

During the Prime Minister's Questions session in Parliament Wednesday, opposition leader David Cameron left the new premier, Gordon Brown, stammering after demanding to know why the government had not banned Hizb ut-Tahrir after promising to do so two years ago.

Brown replied: "Of course in all these details – and I have had to deal with this in the Treasury, when we're dealing with terrorist finance – you have to have evidence to do so."

The answer was met by a chorus of jeers from MPs.

Cameron responded: "The prime minister said we need evidence to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. This organization said, and I quote, 'Jews should be killed wherever they are found.' What more evidence do we need before we ban this organization? It is poisoning the minds of young people. Two years ago the government said it should be banned. I ask again, when will this be done?"

Brown seemed even more hesitant this time.

"We can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and, of course, of course, of course ... I think the leader of the opposition forgets I've been at this job for five days ... ," he said, as jeers once again filled the chamber.

Brown already, in fact, has issued a ban of another kind – prohibiting his ministers from using the word 'Muslim' in connection with the worldwide terrorism threat. He also has instructed his team to drop the phrase "war on terror," Britain's Daily Express reported.

The paper says the "shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more 'consensual' tone than existed under Tony Blair."

The New York Times reported last week many Britons were happy with Brown's tempered approach to the foiled terrorist attacks just days after he succeeded Blair.

Brown, wrote London-based reporter Alan Cowell, "played down the threat, treating the episodes as a crime rather than a threat to civilization. Yet, his minimalist approach seemed to strike a reassuring chord with Britons, many of whom had expressed fatigue with Mr. Blair's apocalyptic view of terrorism."