Herald-Sun

Mosque Leader Says He Warned Police By BETH GARDINER : Associated Press Writer Dec 27, 2001 : 7:56 am ET

LONDON (AP) -- The leader of a south London mosque, whose members once included a man now suspected of trying to detonate explosives aboard an airliner, says police failed to act on repeated warnings that radicals were recruiting young Muslims.

Richard C. Reid, who formerly attended the Brixton mosque, was overpowered by flight attendants and passengers after he allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his sneaker aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on Saturday.

Abdul Haqq Baker, leader of the mosque, said Reid -- also known as Abdel Rahim -- drifted away from the Brixton community after falling under the influence of radicals.

"We have been in contact with the police numerous times over the last five years to warn of the threat posed by militant groups operating in our area," Baker was quoted as saying in Thursday's editions of The Times.

"Only now are they bothering to follow it up. My fear is this is all too little too late."

Reid has been charged with intimidation or assault of a flight crew and could face 20 years in prison. He is being held in jail under suicide watch pending a psychological examination.

According to news reports, Reid was born in south London in 1973, the son of a Jamaican father and an English mother. He joined the Brixton mosque in 1996 after serving a prison sentence for street crimes, the reports said. Scotland Yard has declined to give any details of Reid's record.

Reid joined the mosque at about the same time as Zacarias Moussaoui, a Frenchman of Moroccan descent charged in the United States with conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Baker said.

ABC News reported Wednesday that European authorities have evidence of contact between Moussaoui and Reid late last year, and that the two spent time together in a training camp in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

ABC News quoted unidentified sources as saying that some al-Qaida suspects detained in Afghanistan have identified Reid from pictures shown to them by interrogators.

"At the end of Zacarias Moussaoui being in the community and spouting off his views, it was true that Mr. Reid was attending at the same time," Baker said. "I'm pretty confident they were attending the extreme scholarship classes being held by some of the extremists who could not attend our center."

Talking to reporters on Wednesday, Baker said he doubted that Reid could have acted alone.

"He was one who was easily led -- the way the whole thing was bungled is because of his naivety," Baker said.

"The way he tried to commit this act shows his gullibility. He was sent as a tester though he was not to know that. We are confident he was not acting alone."

The mosque, located in a row of Victorian houses, has a young, multicultural membership that includes a large number of converts. It teaches "basic, mainstream orthodox" Islam, but has attracted some "extreme elements" who targeted enthusiastic converts like Reid, Baker said.

Baker suggested Reid might have had contact with more radical mosques such as the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, home of militant Egyptian-born cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Al-Masri said he had no knowledge of Reid.

"I don't know about the guy, actually," he told the BBC.

Investigators are still attempting to confirm the suspect's identity. London's Times newspaper and a French police official both have identified Reid as a British petty criminal with an English mother and a Jamaican father.

After the man's arrest Saturday, French officials initially said they thought he was from Sri Lanka, but Sri Lanka said later he was not a citizen.

A report Tuesday in France's La Provence newspaper, citing police and intelligence sources, said Reid had belonged to an Islamic movement called Tabliq but left because he said it was "not radical enough" for him.

The FBI has said more charges are likely.

Meanwhile, a Paris airport security firm told CNN Tuesday that it warned French authorities on two different days that Reid should be screened further, but authorities cleared him to fly.

Head of security firm IVTC Lior Zucker said his security officers recommended Friday and Saturday that French authorities take a closer look at Reid. ICTS does security screening for American Airlines in France and in other European countries.

Zucker would not go into details about why his agents were suspicious of Reid.

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2001

Answers

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/361/nation/London_mosque_is_called_m agnet_for_extremist_recruiters+.shtml

London mosque is called magnet for extremist recruiters

By Michele Kurtz, Globe Correspondent and Tatsha Robertson Globe Staff, 12/27/2001

LONDON - Most were new to Islam. Many had recently been released from prison. And to Muslim extremists seeking allies for their holy war, these young worshipers at Brixton Mosque were prime targets, according to the mosque's leader.

Recruiters often visited the two-story brick house in this working- class South London neighborhood of Brixton, said mosque chairman Abdul Haqq Baker. They prayed alongside more moderate Muslims, meeting converts and luring them to a nearby restaurant where they preached a fiery brand of extremism.

Richard C. Reid, a 28-year-old Londoner, was among those intoxicated by the extremists, Baker said. Reid now sits in Plymouth (Mass.) House of Correction, accused of trying to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 on Saturday by lighting explosives hidden in his shoes.

''He started coming and comparing what we had taught him to what he'd heard on the outside,'' Baker said yesterday, standing outside the mosque, which is tucked among a row of Victorian buildings.

Across the Western world, mosques such as Brixton have not only become places where young, disillusioned men seek to renew their spirit, but magnets for Islamic extremists searching for recruits.

Like many of those who come to worship at Brixton, Reid is non-Arab. The son of an English mother and Jamaican father, he began attending prayer services and learning the religion in 1996 or 1997, shortly after converting to Islam in prison.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged ''20th hijacker'' who has been charged in the United States with conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks, also worshiped at the Brixton mosque at the same time as Reid. It is not clear whether the two men knew each other.

''We hadn't seen either of them for a long time,'' Baker said yesterday.

A spokesman for Abu Hamza, the Imam for the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, said he's not surprised that men like Reid and Moussaoui distanced themselves from Baker's mosque, which he said preaches a watered-down version of Islam.

''These people are just seen as government agents,'' said Haron Rashid, Hamza's spokesman. ''They teach people the half-baked Islam.''

Since the 1970s, Islam has been a strong draw for prisoners and ex- convicts in Europe and North America. For many of these young men, including thousands of African-Americans the religion helps turn them into model citizens, said Edith Flynn, a terrorism specialist at Northeastern University.

But extremist sheiks, mostly in Europe, have taken advantage of some of these converts' interests, turning them toward radicalism, according to specialists.

''What's happening is that these new converts are being targeted by sheiks of bin Laden and Al Qaeda, said Vince Cannistraro, former chief of counterterrorism operations at the CIA. ''They are looking for people who don't fit the profile.''

Reid was raised in South London. Officials at Scotland Yard have refused to discuss whether Reid had a criminal record, but London newspapers have said he was a petty criminal convicted of muggings.

When he first joined the Brixton Mosque, which preaches against terrorism, Reid was said to be an amicable, quiet, and eager pupil. But he was influenced by some Muslims with extreme views who attended services and pushed their views when administrators were out of sight, said Abu Zakaria, a mosque trustee. Reid began spending more and more time with those individuals and worshiping at other mosques, Baker said.

Reid, whom mosque members said took the Muslim name Abdel Rahim, engaged in heated arguments with other Brixton worshipers over issues, such as what constitutes a true Muslim and when jihad is justified, Zakaria said.

For about six years, Baker said, Brixton Mosque representatives have identified Muslim extremists for authorities but they never told police about Reid, he said. Baker said he didn't think Reid was dangerous.

Six months ago, Reid's mother came looking for her son. She told Baker she had lost contact with him while he was in Pakistan and was worried about him. Authorities yesterday could not explain why he was in Pakistan, but the Associated Press reported that two Taliban fighters said they saw Reid at a training camp in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden.

Baker said he fears there are about 100 more young extremists just like Reid in London alone.

''We here at the center honestly believe there are more serious things to come,'' he said. ''And we've told the police that.''

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2001