An Islamist preacher, known to have radicalised the killers of British soldier Lee Rigby, has justified the murder of women and children who oppose jihadis, according to media reports.
In a message on the social media site Facebook, the preacher Omar Bakri Muhammad, also known as the “Tottenham Ayatollah”, said it was sometimes necessary to kill women and children sheltering in schools and hospitals, Daily Mail reported Sunday.
Bakri wrote that even though it was not usually permitted, “one must distinguish between killing women and children and the Mujahideen fighting the Kuffar (non-believers) wherever they find them, whether that be in a school, a hospital, or elsewhere,” according to the Sunday Telegraph, which the Daily Mail report cited.
The extremist preacher justified the killing of those fighting the jihadis in Syria and Iraq.
He said that the Mujahideen must kill people who do not believe in the extreme version of Islam, “wherever they find them”.
Bakri, who has been banned from Britain and faces terrorism charges in Lebanon, has been openly using Facebook for extremist propaganda and has been blamed for radicalising several young extremists, including the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby.
A Facebook spokesman said that they don’t comment on individual cases, but added that they do not permit terrorist material on their site.
Fusilier Lee Rigby was attacked and killed near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, May 22, 2013 by two extremists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.
The killers told passers-by that they had killed a soldier to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British armed forces.
Bakri was previously the London-based spiritual leader of the extremist group Al-Muhajiroun.
He lived in London earlier and was under investigation by the British police after he called on young British Muslims to take up arms and join the Al Qaeda.
It was also reported that Bakri referred to the four suicide bombers, who killed 56 people July 7, 2005 in London as “the fantastic four”.
He said that the British people were to blame for the terror attacks on the capital because they “did not make enough efforts to stop (their) own government (from) committing atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistana¿.
The radical Islamic cleric was under house arrest in Tripoli since Lebanese security forces released him from jail in 2010, after striking a deal with the Shia extremist group Hezbollah.
(IANS)