Muslim Position on Al Muhajiroun

With the revelation that Al Muhajiroun are behind virtually every home-grown terrorist in Britain, it is appropriate to look at what the Muslim groups have done to stop them.

The MCB has not released a statement about yesterday's events. However, Inayat Bunglawala appeared on Newsnight last night claiming that there was nothing Muslims could do about the likes of Abu Hamza. He claimed that the Muslim community had informed the police about him but that they themselves could do nothing.

This is, of course, rubbish. Why weren't the proper clerics brought in to counter his vile? When he was preaching in the street where were the Muslim leaders to oppose him? Why wasn't he excommunicated by the Muslim community for perverting Islam?

But there's more. In 2003 Bunglawala claimed, "In the long run, it is surely that lack of balance in some of our policies which represents a greater challenge to relations between Islam and the West than the sorry antics of al-Muhajiroun." And in Feb 2006 the MCB dismissed Al Muhajiroun as "mischievous elements".

Do the MCB now accept that they were wrong? Do they accept that they could and should have done more to stop this group from radicalising Muslims?

Let's move on to another favourite of the media; the Islamic Human Rights Commission. Again, not much by way of condemnation of this group. The only thing that this group had to say about them was to oppose calls for their prosecution after the Danish cartoons protest.

Finally, we have the very vocal MPACUK. In a piece today they blame our foreign policy for radicalising young Muslims (something which we know not to be true because most of these Muslims were involved with Al Muhajiroun pre-9/11). They also blame the Mosque leaders for not doing anything. At least we can agree on the latter.

However, MPACUK haven't exactly done much themselves. After the Danish protest they said, "it's wrong that we Muslims have not dealt with them once and for all." Did MPACUK then go on to deal with them? No. In October they suggested that Al Muhajiroun were government agents! Then in February the head of MPACUK told Sky News that Izzadeen "isn't really an extremist" (watch here with thanks to Kasper).

So, we know that the Muslim community isn't chock full of random people waiting to become terrorists. We know that there is a group of identified people who are radicalising Muslims. We know that up to know the Muslim leaders have pretty much ignored them or worse. Will we now see a change in attitude to Britain's Al Qaeda?