January 03, 2009
Bakri Mohammad On the Run, Accused of Training al Qaeda
Looks like the Lebanese are finally getting serious with al Qaeda supporter Omar Bakri Mohammad. The British cleric in exile is reporting that he's on the run after a military court ordered his arrest for training Lebanese al Qaeda members.
What's interesting about this is that, for once, Bakri Mohammad may actually be innocent -- at least of the specific charge he claims he's accused of. Excuse me for having a difficult time believing he has any kind of skills that Fatah al-Islam (al Qaeda's branch in Lebanon) would be interested in. Can you imagine the decrepit old antisemite giving lessons to a former muj in Iraq on the proper way to detonate an IED? Not likely.
We'll try to follow this one closer to see what the specific charges are from a more reliable source than Bakri himself. I find it much more believable that his involvement has to do with funding Fatah al-Islam rather than training them. A friend in the UK once sent us an audio of Bakri imploring his followers to give money to the mujahidin.
That's his MO -- stay just far enough from terrorists as to give himself plausible deniability. But he's fooled no one, really. He supports al Qaeda in as many ways as possible without crossing some imaginary line drawn up by defense lawyers.
When the Lebanese security forces do catch up with him I'll be the blogger with the big fat crocodile tears crying a river over however it is they treat suspected terrorists in Lebanon. I know a few good Turkish prison jokes. I bet Lebanese prisons aren't much different.
Speaking on a mobile phone from the Lebanon, he said: "I'm on the run and I am afraid I could be arrested and tortured, which is why I have gone into hiding.What can I say? It couldn't have happened to a better goat humper!"The warrant says that I'm suspected of training people from the al-Qaeda Lebanon group to use weapons but these allegations are completely false.
"The British government is co-operating with Lebanese military intelligence and I have become the bogeyman, a scapegoat for anything they wish to throw at me."
