Airline bomb plot: mosque has been recruiting ground for 20 years

by Robert Spencer

Why didn't the vast majority of peaceful Muslims, the adherents of the authentic and peaceful Islam, rise up and drive out these terror recruiters from the mosque?

More on this story. "Airline bomb plot: mosque has been recruiting ground for 20 years," by Sean O'Neill for the Times Online, September 7 (thanks to Kris):

The mosque frequented by key members of the airline plot terror cell has been a recruiting ground for Islamist extremists for more than 20 years, The Times can reveal.

The Queen’s Road mosque in Walthamstow, East London, was a regular place of worship and meeting place for central figures from the group.

Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the cell leader, prayed there and met with his associates including Waheed Zaman, who lived opposite.

The mosque is currently under the control of Tablighi Jamaat, an ultraorthodox Islamic sect which preaches that Muslims should replicate the life of Muhammad and tells them it is their duty to travel the world converting non-believers to the one true faith.

Intelligence services around the world believe Tablighi Jamaat’s fundamentalism makes some of its followers easy prey for terrorist recruiters. Mohammed Sidique Khan, the leader of the London 7/7 bombers, was an adherent.

Almost without exception, the Walthamstow bombers were Tablighi followers. They sometimes went to huge Friday night gatherings in West Ham on the site beside the 2012 Olympic Park where the sect wants to build Europe's biggest mosque with space for 12,000 people to pray....

I was at that site recently. The Muslims there were very suspicious and closemouthed -- much more so than in other mosques in London.