Partibrejker
Top-Poster
Transcript:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi Mr Loftus. I recently read a book by Morris Dees called The Gathering Storm , and it talks about extremist militia groups in the United States and how they might be manipulated by some people's rhetoric, very similar to Aswat in London. What do you think the US is doing to prevent terrorist attacks on our own soil that happen--
JERRICK: You're worried about it here?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, sir.
LOFTUS: The US government's doing a great job. We arrested the New York branch of Al-Muhajiroun two years ago. We found the subway bombers with the plans to blow up two different subway stations in New York City. The rest of the group is under surveillance. But the US was used by Al-Muhajiroun for training of people to send to Kosovo. What ties all these cells together was, back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo. That's when Al-Muhajiroun got started.
IJAZ: Which is by the way why we know so much about them right now.
LOFTUS: Yes, I'm afraid so. The CIA was funding the operation to defend the Muslims, British intelligence was doing the hiring and recruiting. Now we have a lot of detail on this because Captain Hook, the head of Al-Muhajiroun, he sidekick was Bakri Mohammed, another cleric. And back on October 16, 2001, he gave a detailed interview with al-Sharq al-Aswat, an Arabic newspaper in London, describing the relationship between British intelligence and the operations in Kosovo and Al-Muhajiroun. So that's how we get all these guys connected. It started in Kosovo, Haroon was 31 years old, he came on about 1995.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi Mr Loftus. I recently read a book by Morris Dees called The Gathering Storm , and it talks about extremist militia groups in the United States and how they might be manipulated by some people's rhetoric, very similar to Aswat in London. What do you think the US is doing to prevent terrorist attacks on our own soil that happen--
JERRICK: You're worried about it here?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, sir.
LOFTUS: The US government's doing a great job. We arrested the New York branch of Al-Muhajiroun two years ago. We found the subway bombers with the plans to blow up two different subway stations in New York City. The rest of the group is under surveillance. But the US was used by Al-Muhajiroun for training of people to send to Kosovo. What ties all these cells together was, back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo. That's when Al-Muhajiroun got started.
IJAZ: Which is by the way why we know so much about them right now.
LOFTUS: Yes, I'm afraid so. The CIA was funding the operation to defend the Muslims, British intelligence was doing the hiring and recruiting. Now we have a lot of detail on this because Captain Hook, the head of Al-Muhajiroun, he sidekick was Bakri Mohammed, another cleric. And back on October 16, 2001, he gave a detailed interview with al-Sharq al-Aswat, an Arabic newspaper in London, describing the relationship between British intelligence and the operations in Kosovo and Al-Muhajiroun. So that's how we get all these guys connected. It started in Kosovo, Haroon was 31 years old, he came on about 1995.
