A very amusing New York Times profile July 21 of Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, the former firebrand cleric who is now exiled in Lebanon and barred from returning to his former home of Britain. The man who once praised the 9-11 plotters is now attempting to negotiate a truce in the fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam. He says: “I want to support Muslims by saving their blood and their life. My job is to calm the fighting and to open a dialogue.” Counterintuitively, he says that it is moderate Muslims who are most at risk of becoming jihadist cannon fodder:
“How come the moderate Muslims, not Omar Bakri, do this?” he demanded. “Because of Sheik Google,” he quipped, referring to the use of the Internet to learn Islamic principles.
See our last posts on Lebanon, cyber culture and the struggle within Islam.
