News of the World - British Al-Qaeda Supergrass

[Ali Abdullah]

It's good that he's got out of promoting violence, and I hope it's a genuine change of heart, but I'm always wary about these people. He's going to reveal what he knows, but what is the motivation here, and how do we know it's all true?

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/stor...ws/news3.shtml

EXCLUSIVE
By Lewis Panther

A FRIGHTENED supergrass today reveals how thousands of young Muslims are preparing to unleash fresh terror atrocities on Britain's streets.

Shame-faced Hassan Butt, 27, spent 10 years close to the heart of the al-Qaeda network as its preachers of hate recruited suicide bombers here.

He acted as a heartless fundraiser from the Muslim community, collecting cash to send brain-washed young Brits to terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

But, in the wake of the 7/7 London bombings, in which 52 innocent victims died, he no longer gloats about his sinister exploits.

Instead he is about to become the biggest whistle-blower of all time— by exposing how the radical Islamic extremists operate.

And he warned: "It's sad but we WILL have more atrocities like 7/7 because there are tens of thousands of Muslims who still support violence."

Wanted in Pakistan for plotting against President Musharraf, Butt is back here living in fear of our security forces — and of Islamic revenge squads threatening him with jihad.

And at last he is ready to tell the truth about our enemy within.

He glanced nervously over his shoulder as he talked to our reporter in a cafe close to where the London suicide bombers hatched their deadly mission. He revealed how he:

COLLECTED "taxes" from doctors and wealthy businessmen in the Muslim community with his sinister team to fund terrorism.

LURED desperate drug addicts, aided by their evil dealers, in a plot to "poison the West with drugs".

BLAMES moderate Muslim leaders for failing to face up to preachers of hate like hook-handed Abu Hamza and exiled Omar Bakri, leaving them free to twist young minds.

Butt said: "Saying thousands of British Muslims support terrorism is no over-estimation. I know because I used to raise money from them. Doctors, teachers and businessmen would all chip in—and they knew it was going towards terrorism.

"There might only be a few who go on to become suicide bombers, but it only takes a few to do all the damage if they have got that support network around them.

"And the kids who are being recruited aren't getting any help from the mosques to stop them.

"The moderate Muslims like the MCB (Muslim Council of Britain) aren't doing enough to stop people like Omar Bakri. He's certainly to blame for wrecking a lot of lives."

It is the first time someone so senior inside the British Muslim terror network has spoken out about al-Qaeda.

Butt, a former law student, is paranoid about being watched by MI5 as he moves from sleeping on one friend's floor to another's. But he's even more nervous about being hunted down by his former friends who believe they are fighting a holy war. A gang of thugs have already stabbed him in the street after he renounced their violent ways.

But before he turned his back on terror, young Muslims, especially those who do not feel part of Britain, were easy targets for Butt.

He was raised in Manchester and was just 16 when he became involved in radical and pro-violent Islamic groups.

He said: "I was helping in a drug rehabilitation centre, which gave me easy access to potential jihadi recruits. The addicts were vulnerable and easy to convert to our cause.

"It may sound sick to outsiders but I genuinely believed I was fighting a war. That's why I was photographed with a loudhailer calling for Muslims to attack the British and Americans when I was in Pakistan.

"The centre also gave me easy access to the drug dealers. You got to find out who they were and they wouldn't stand up to us either. Knowing we'd been involved in terrorist training made them stand up and pay attention —and pay up part of their profits.

"They even thought they were helping our cause by only selling crack and heroin to non-Muslims. We saw it as a tactic of war to keep poisoning the West with drugs.

"We all believed that you could steal, rob, lie and even sell drugs to support our fight."

Butt found his recruits in the gyms and snooker halls. "We'd talk about the suffering of the Muslims all over the world," he explained.

"We were well versed in the Koran, in the sayings of the Prophet and could make them believe it was permissible for people to go around killing innocent men, women and children."

During his stay in Pakistan, Butt mixed with an even more violent band of radicals, buying guns to be shipped to fighters inside Afghanistan.

And it was there in 2002, at his flat in the capital Islamabad, that he met the ringleader of the 7/7 London suicide bombings, Muhammed Siddique Khan.

They were introduced by New York-born Junaid Babar, who later became star witness against the fertiliser bombers who plotted to kill hundreds of clubbers at London's Ministry of Sound and thousands of shoppers at the Bluewater complex in Kent.

At that time Butt sent dozens of young Britons across the Pakistani border into Afghan training camps. He stayed in the background, working his way up to become one of the most senior members of the now banned al-Muhajiroun organisation.

But since fleeing Pakistan and returning to Britain, Butt has had a change of heart.

"It was all the talk of killing for no reason that got to me," he said.

"People just wanted to go out and kill kaffirs (non-believers) just because they were kaffirs. Not because of the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. I started having deep doubts about this and how it fitted in with my beliefs and what the Koran said."

It was the 7/7 massacre that finally changed his mind about supporting the suicide bombers.

"We couldn't believe that al-Qaeda had given the order to attack here in England," he said.

"London was a good place for us. We could move about and raise a lot of money easily.

"So it was strange for the bombings to take place there. Although I said I wanted to become a martyr, and praised the suicide bombers before, it's something that's bothered my conscience for a very long time.

"I couldn't get used to the idea that someone completely innocent sitting next to you could be killed."

Butt plans to publish an open letter to British Muslims in July calling for an end to the violence he once glorified.

It will tie in with the second anniversary of the London Tube and bus bombings.

He believes it's up to British Muslims to stop fanatics influencing more young, impressionable minds and hopes his U-turn on violence will influence others.

He said: "It'll be years before MI5 and the police get on top of it because it's so much harder to infiltrate the groups. It's going to take them 20 years. So it's up to us.

"There are friends of mine who are disillusioned. But they are nervous about being open because they've seen what happened to me.

"But someone's got to make a stand. What I've come to realise is that killing in the name of Islam for the sake of killing is completely prohibited. It's a very dangerous cancer in the Muslim world and it needs to be dealt with.

"As long as we Muslims do not acknowledge that there is a violent streak in Islam, we are always going to lose the battle to the militants."

[abuhannah]

load of tosh,this **** is a liar and a mug,10 years as an al qaidah operative,10 years my ***..........................

[irfan]

It seems Hassan Butt is a longstanding "Jihadi" media wh0re. Nothing in the News of the Screws story is new. Butt's fantasies were dismissed long ago but he keeps getting media coverage. Note the MCB's claim that he tried to sell his story to the Mirror in 2001 for £100,000.

This is a recent interview with CBS:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n2602308.shtml

Here is coverage in the Telegraph from 2 years ago:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...ixnewstop.html

This is an interview with Prospect magazine 2 years ago:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/a...ls.php?id=6992

From January 2002:

UK 'terror target' claim dismissed

Hassan Butt, 22, from Manchester, told the BBC's Today programme that many would return home to launch terrorist attacks that "strike at the heart" of the UK.

Mr Butt told the Radio 4 programme he would now personally encourage attacks on political and military targets in the UK.

But his claims to speak for al-Muhajiroun have already been denied by the organisation's leader, Tottenham-based cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed.

And both Downing Street and the Home Office said Mr Butt's claims should be treated with caution, while Muslim groups accused him of being a fantasist.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the Met was working with the Crown Prosecution Service to examine the comments on the radio, to establish if any offences had been committed.

Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the self-styled Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, said the interview with Mr Butt was "very worrying and frightening", although he thought the claims were "more fantasy than realism".

Here is a statement from the MCB, also from 2002:

7th January 2002

Editor
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
Broadcasting House
Portland Place
London W1A 1AA

Dear Sir,

Re: Interview with Hassan Butt (al-Muhajiroun spokesman in Lahore, Pakistan) broadcast on 7th Jan 2002

We were shocked and surprised by your decision to broadcast the interview with Hassan Butt which we believe will only succeed in further demonising the mainstream British Muslim community which has no time for extremists like Mr Butt. We note that you did also interview Mr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui of the 'Muslim Parliament' but we believe this in no way justified the airtime given to Mr Butt.

As you are doubtless aware, Mr Butt has been making extravagant claims about his activities in Pakistan since October 2001 when the American-led bombing of Afghanistan first began. Mr Butt claimed to have sent 'hundreds' of British Muslims to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. When prominent figures in the British Muslim community dismissed these figures and demanded he substantiate his claims, Mr Butt failed to do so. Indeed, after the fall of the Taliban, Mr Butt secretly returned to the UK in December 2001 and showed to what extent he despised this material world and was a dedicated 'jihadist' by trying to sell his story to The Mirror for a reputed £100,000.

The BBC as a public service broadcaster must really show more responsibility in the coverage it gives to extreme fringe groups like al-Muhajiroun because we have seen a massive rise in the reports of anti-Muslim incidents in the UK since Sept 11th.

Do you go out of your way to interview extremists from Jewish, Christian and Hindu communities? You will always find someone who has violent opinions but does that mean that ordinary members of those respective faith communities should be made to suffer because of it? I am disturbed at this pattern of 'underhand' attacks on the mainstream Muslims in the UK.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Inayat Bunglawala

Secretary,
Media Committee
The Muslim Council of Britain

cc: Greg Dyke, Director General, BBC

[irfan]

Shame-faced Hassan Butt, 27, spent 10 years close to the heart of the al-Qaeda network as its preachers of hate recruited suicide bombers here.

Not quite. He joined HT aged 17. Then al-Muhajiroon. Then started his own faction. Neither HT nor Omar Bakri are al Qaeda. Even if you think they might be, they are hardly "close to the heart of al Qaeda." The above statement from the NotW is an exaggeration at best and a lie at worst.

He revealed how he:

COLLECTED "taxes" from doctors and wealthy businessmen in the Muslim community with his sinister team to fund terrorism.

LURED desperate drug addicts, aided by their evil dealers, in a plot to "poison the West with drugs".

So how many years has he spent in jail for funding drug-dealing terrorists?

None.

[Peacenik]

Al-CIAeda ?

Did someone say Al-CIAeda ?

[Kashmiri]

This is nonsense. Thousands of British Muslims ready to carry out terrorist attacks? Garbage, pure rubbish. This is just scare-mongering of the worst kind and this idiot 'super-grass' is making money from both the media and the intelligence services by making people fear ordinairy Muslims.
What a twit. As for this statement:

"As long as we Muslims do not acknowledge that there is a violent streak in Islam, we are always going to lose the battle to the militants."

Is he saying Islam justifies terrorist attacks? If so he really doesn't know much about Islam at all.

[Ali Abdullah]

I wonder how much he was paid for this story, and for the interview he gave to CNN?

I expect there'll be a book next, and then he can go on a lecture tour with "Ed' Husain........

[Irreligion]

news of the world is embarressing chav rubbish ..i would not pay any attention to anything these parasites print

[GMAN]

Originally Posted by Irreligion

news of the world is embarressing chav rubbish ..i would not pay any attention to anything these parasites print

True and i wouldn't pay any attention to an opportunistic idiot like hassan butt who just hasn't got a clue, he never did have.

[br ash]

I remember this iddiot after 9-11. I remember him encouraging Muslims in the UK to attack UK citizens, whilst in Pakistan. Its a piety this individual has allowed back into the UK. I hope some nutter in the BNP can get hold of his address. (I have no sympathy for idiots like "him") Deep down all these idiots who have preached hatred here and abroad are nothing other than people who live off the state, because they are no good for nothing low life. The Pakistani ISI has most likely made his life hell there, he most likly no longer welcomed in Pakistan, as he is a British Citizen . Only changed his colors so that he can come back to the UK. If I was MI5 I would have him bugged 24/7. On the slimiest of all evidence have him deported to Gitmo. This scum encouraged the killing of British Citizen after 9-11, far as i am concerned he is the enemy within.

If this is the same Butt, who had a psychological inferiority complex, there is a Butt many years ago who lived in Manchester, who was kicked out of his school, because he was trouble maker, who then made claims that it was because he was a Muslim, not forgetting all the other Muslims in the School, he used this angle to get people to sympathies with him, please note this was well before HT/ Al Mujrahoom were house hold names in the UK. I would take no notice of him. According to a number of Muslims in Manchester he is a real wacko and a trouble maker of the nth degree. That is if he is the same guy.

Salaam

ash

[GMAN]

The fact of the matter is that world geo-political struggles and the role of Islam and Muslims in these 'great games' are very complex affairs where there are many players with different motives, many factors influencing events etc.

The problem we have in the UK is ,thanks to certain naive groups, these issues have become the new 'cause' for some of the street kids who were previously running around selling drugs and engaged in street fights. Many of these don;t really have the intellectual capacity to understand whats really going on in the world so its better if they just did some studying and made very little noise. Unfortunately that isn't the case and they end up coming out with naive and simplistic version of events that lead to naive and dangerous solutions, i.e. 7/7.

Its therefore better for people of Mr Butts ilk to keep their mouths shut until they have developed a better understanding of world affairs and realised that Islamic radicalism in not just a new fashionable game.

[bigdunc9]

Originally Posted by Peacenik

Al-CIAeda ?

Did someone say Al-CIAeda ?

Only you.....again

[Peacenik]

Thank you bdc for noticing that.

That's made my day.

Thank you once again.

Take care for now.

[bigdunc9]

Originally Posted by Peacenik

Thank you bdc for noticing that.

That's made my day.

Thank you once again.

Take care for now.

Okey dokey

[Peacenik]

For a minute there, I thought you were going to say 'donkey'...

[GMAN]

Originally Posted by Peacenik

For a minute there, I thought you were going to say 'donkey'...

do you ever have anything interesting to say, besides your little silly side comments in threads.....actually don't answer that

[bigdunc9]

Originally Posted by GMAN

do you ever have anything interesting to say, besides your little silly side comments in threads.....actually don't answer that

Well no... al ciada and zionist are about the gist of it

[Peacenik]

Originally Posted by GMAN

do you ever have anything interesting to say, besides your little silly side comments in threads.....actually don't answer that

Awww, GMAN, still mad at me for telling you off ?

Awwww....

[GMAN]

Originally Posted by Peacenik

Awww, GMAN, still mad at me for telling you off ?

Awwww....

Haha oh yes that..was it a telling off, hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm.

It aint mad at yaaaaaaa...u american

[Peacenik]

Americanos ?!

I beg your pardon ?