Abdul Rahman Saleem

Last updated

Abdul Rahman Saleem, (born Rahman Yahyaei) also known as Abu Yahya, is a British Islamic activist, born around 1975.

Contents

Early life and education

Saleem was born in Mashhad, Iran in 1975 to a Punjabi Sunni family. He left Iran for London in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution where he was bullied and discriminated against for his South Asian identity. This provoked his embracement of radical Islam and later he became closely acquainted with Al-Muhajiroun members Omar Bakri and Anjem Choudary.[ citation needed ] Nonetheless, he excelled in his studies, earning 11 A* Grades at GCSE and 5 A grades at A Level in English literature, Persian, Further Mathematics, Mathematics and Physics. Despite this, he opted to attend University in Iran and was granted a placement at Sharif University of Technology to study mechanical engineering in 1993. He graduated in 1998 and returned to the United Kingdom the following year.[ citation needed ]

Career

He is a former Al Muhajiroun spokesman, [1] [2] a former member of the Saved Sect, and was a prominent member of al-Maddad, an organisation that claims to have sent dozens of British Muslims to fight in Chechnya and elsewhere. In August 2001, he went to secret camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and trained in the use of guns and explosives. [3]

He lives in Poplar, London. He is the father of five children and works for British Telecom as an engineer. [4]

On 18 November 2005 he attended the founding of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah. [5]

He participated in the Islamist demonstration outside the Danish Embassy in London in 2006, where he chanted "Europe you will pay with your blood" [4] and "Denmark, USA, 7/7 on its way" through a megaphone, [6] and he was charged with using words likely to stir up racial hatred and released on bail to appear at West London Magistrates' Court on 31 March 2006 [7] On 1 February 2007, he was found guilty, and will be held until his sentencing in April. [8]

He was found guilty of Incitement to Terrorism Overseas by a unanimous verdict, and found not guilty of Terrorist Fundraising by a majority verdict on 17 April 2008 at Kingston upon Thames Crown Court. [9] He gave a series of speeches at the Regent's Park Mosque, the DVD of which was discovered at the former residence of Omar Bakri in 2006. [10] He was sentenced the following day to three years imprisonment.

References and notes

  1. "Transplanted Jihadi" Archived 7 November 2006 at the Wayback Machine Newsweek 19 August 2005
  2. "Five British volunteers killed in attack on Mazar, says Islamist group" The Guardian 17 November 2001
  3. "Briton trained by bin Laden recruits in London" The Telegraph 23 September 2001
  4. 1 2 "Cartoon protester guilty of race hate", The Daily Telegraph, 2 February 2007
  5. "New group replaces al-Muhajiroun" BBC News 29 October 2006
  6. Focus: How liberal Britain let hate flourish The Sunday Times 12 February 2006
  7. Man charged over cartoon protest BBC 26 March 2006
  8. "Protester guilty of race hatred", BBC, 1 February 2007
  9. "Six guilty of terrorism support". BBC News. 17 April 2008. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
  10. "Muslim preacher Abu Izzadeen jailed for four and a half years", The Daily Telegraph, 18 April 2008

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finsbury Park Mosque</span> Mosque in north London, England

The Finsbury Park Mosque, also known as the North London Central Mosque, is a five-storey mosque located next to Finsbury Park station close to Arsenal Football Club's Emirates Stadium, in the London Borough of Islington. Finsbury Park Mosque is registered as a charity in England, serving the local community in Islington and the surrounding boroughs of North London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abu Hamza al-Masri</span> Egyptian-born British Islamist terrorist incarcerated in a US federal prison

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, or simply Abu Hamza, is an Egyptian cleric who was the imam of Finsbury Park Mosque in London, England, where he preached Islamic fundamentalist views. In 2004, Hamza was arrested by British police after the United States requested he be extradited to face charges. He was later charged by British authorities with sixteen offences for inciting violence and racial hatred. In 2006, a British court found him guilty of inciting violence, and sentenced him to seven years' imprisonment. On 5 October 2012, after an eight-year legal battle, he was extradited from the UK to the United States to face terrorism charges and on 14 April 2014 his trial began in New York. On 19 May 2014, Hamza was found guilty of eleven terrorism charges by a jury in Manhattan. On 9 January 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamic Human Rights Commission</span> Islamic non-profit organisation based in London

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a non-profit organisation based in London. Its stated mission is to "work with different organisations from Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds, to campaign for justice for all peoples regardless of their racial, confessional or political background." The group is based in London and was established in 1997. The organisation, since 2007, has consultative status with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Omar Bakri Muhammad is a Syrian Islamist militant leader born in Aleppo. He was instrumental in developing Hizb ut-Tahrir in the United Kingdom before leaving the group and heading to another Islamist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, until its disbandment in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al-Muhajiroun</span> Militant network based in Saudi Arabia

Al-Muhajiroun is a proscribed militant network based in Saudi Arabia. The founder of the group was Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian who previously belonged to Hizb ut-Tahrir; he was not permitted to re-enter Britain after 2005. According to The Times, the organisation has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia, and antisemitism. The group became notorious for its September 2002 conference "The Magnificent 19", praising the September 11, 2001 attacks. The network mutates periodically so as to evade the law; it operates under many different aliases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anjem Choudary</span> Pakistani-British Islamist and political activist (born 1967)

Anjem Choudary is a Pakistani-British Islamist and a social and political activist who has been described as "the face" of militant Islamism or the "best known" Islamic extremist in Britain.

The Saved Sect, formerly and more generally known as The Saviour Sect, is a Muslim Islamist organization that operated in the United Kingdom from its formation in November 2005 until the British government proscribed it on 17 July 2006. It is widely believed, along with Al Ghurabaa, to be the reformed Al-Muhajiroun which Omar Bakri Muhammad disbanded in 2004. It is believed that Omar Bakri today still heads this organisation.

Operation Crevice was a raid launched by Metropolitan and local police in England on the morning of 30 March 2004. It was in response to a report indicating cells of terrorists of Pakistani origin operating in the Thames Valley, Sussex, Surrey and Bedfordshire areas, the source of which was said to be an interception of an instruction sent from Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan to militants in Britain. In March 2020 Jonathan Evans, Former Director General, MI5 gave an interview and citing one passage: 'The plot itself, however, appeared to be encouraged and fomented by al-Qa`ida in the tribal areas. It was one of the early ones we saw. It involved predominantly British citizens or British residents of Pakistani heritage, something which became something of a theme for this period'. The operation resulted in five men being found guilty in April 2007 of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

Al Ghurabaa is a Muslim organization which, along with The Saviour Sect, Islam4UK and others, is widely believed to be the reformed Al-Muhajiroun after it disbanded in 2004 by order of Omar Bakri Muhammad. Other members include Abu Izzadeen and Abu Uzair.

The 2006 Islamist demonstration outside the Embassy of Denmark in London took place on 3 February 2006, in response to controversy surrounding the publication of editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005. The extremist UK-based Islamist groups al Ghurabaa and The Saviour Sect staged a controversial protest march from London Central Mosque near Marylebone Station to the Danish Embassy near Knightsbridge Underground station.

Abu Izzadeen is a British spokesman for Al Ghurabaa, a British Muslim organisation banned under the Terrorism Act 2006 for the glorification of terrorism. He was convicted on charges of terrorist fund-raising and inciting terrorism overseas on 17 April 2008 and sentenced to four and a half years in jail. He was released in May 2009, after serving three and a half years, including time on remand. In January 2016, he was sentenced to two years imprisonment for breaching the Terrorism Act by leaving the UK illegally.

Khalid Abdulrahman al-Fawwaz is a Saudi who was under indictment in the United States from 1998, accused of helping to prepare the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He was extradited to the United States and arraigned in October 2012.

The 2006 Cheetham Hill terrorism arrests was an anti-terrorism operation in the United Kingdom, in which Habib Ahmed, a taxi driver, was arrested by six policemen at his home in Cheetham Hill, Manchester on 23 August 2006 on suspicion of his involvement in a plan to attack on an individual.

Sulayman Keeler is a Muslim convert and leader of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah, a British Islamist organisation. He is a former member of Al-Muhajiroun, a banned organisation designated as a terrorist organisation, and led the Society of Converts to Islam.

Umran Javed is a former spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun, a designated and banned terrorist organisation. A British court found Javed guilty of soliciting to murder and inciting racial hatred for repeatedly chanting "bomb, bomb, USA," "bomb, bomb, Denmark," "we want Danish blood!," "UK you will pay!," said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "would be coming back," and "7/7 on its way!" outside the Danish embassy following the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Mohammed Mizanur Rahman is a British Islamist activist and former follower of Omar Bakri Muhammad. He has been described as a lecturer in Islamic jurisprudence, and in 2012 has written a 244-page book titled Are Demonstrations Beneficial? – In Light of The Qur'an and Sunnah, where he opposes demonstrations. He is of Bangladeshi descent. He was convicted in 2007 of charges of solicitation to murder American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. He was released from prison in late 2010 and re-arrested for terror-related offences in September 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khalid Kelly</span>

Khalid Kelly, born Terence Edward Kelly, also known as Abu Osama Al-Irlandi and Taliban Terry was an Irish Muslim convert and at one time the leader of Al-Muhajiroun in Ireland.

Islamism has existed in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, and has become widely visible and a topic of political discourse since the beginning of the 21st century.

Abu Rumaysah al-Britani, born Siddhartha Dhar, is a British citizen who is an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant. In January 2016, he was named as the narrator in a film issued by ISIL that showed the execution of suspected spies against the regime. Abu Rumaysah has been designated as a global terrorist by the United States.