U.K. Sunnis condemn London suicide attacks

LONDON - Ten days after Islamic radicals carried out deadly attacks on the London transport system, Britain’s largest Sunni Muslim group on Sunday issued a binding religious edict, a fatwa, condemning the July 7 suicide bombings as the work of a “perverted ideology.”

The Sunni Council denounced the bombings as anti-Islamic and said the Quran, the Muslim holy book, forbade suicide attacks.

“Who has given anyone the right to kill others? It is a sin. Anyone who commits suicide will be sent to Hell,” said Mufti Muhammad Gul Rehman Qadri, the council chairman. “What happened in London can be seen as a sacrilege. It is a sin to take your life or the life of others.”

‘We equally condemn’
The council said Muslims should not use “atrocities being committed in Palestine and Iraq” to justify attacks such as those in London that killed 55 when suicide bombers struck in three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, the fatwa declared.

“We equally condemn those who may have been behind the masterminding of these acts, those who incited these youths in order to further their own perverted ideology,” Qadri said.

Six people were arrested in the northern city of Leeds for possible immigration violations, police said Sunday. A press release from Metropolitan Police corrected an earlier statement indicating the six were arrested under the British anti-terrorism act.

A police spokesman did not identify those held or say if the arrests were connected to the investigation in Leeds of the July 7 mass-transit terrorist bombings in London. Earlier, Police searched an Islamic bookstore in the city, hometown of three of the suspected bombers.

“At this stage, these arrests are not being linked to the incidents in London. However, we are working closely with officers from the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism branch as part of this inquiry,” another police spokeswoman said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

Britain rejects criticism on refugee policy
Earlier Sunday, Britain’s government rejected criticism that lax policies toward Muslim political refugees helped facilitate terrorist recruiters.

As the investigation continued into the attacks, a newspaper reported that Britain’s domestic secret service, MI5, had scrutinized one of the four suspected bombers in 2004 but did not regard him as a threat to national security or put him under surveillance.

MI5 began evaluating Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, during an inquiry focused on an alleged plot to explode a large truck bomb outside a London target believed to be a nightclub in the Soho neighborhood, The Sunday Times reported. The inquiry evaluated hundreds of potential suspects, the newspaper said.

Police declined to comment on the Times report, as did a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office.

Reports: Al-Qaida, Israel bombing links studied
Khan figures in two other weekend media reports. The Sunday Independent newspaper said police had established a link between the oldest of the bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, and al-Qaida.

The Independent reported that a Pakistani-American believed to have attended an al-Qaida “summit” in Pakistan last year and who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in the United States after his arrest shortly afterwards, had identified Khan from photographs.

Israeli security sources played down a report on Sunday that Khan is thought to have helped plan a pro-Palestinian suicide attack in Tel Aviv two years ago.

The Maariv daily newspaper said Khan traveled to the Jewish state in 2003 and that Israeli defense officials suspect he helped two fellow British Muslims carry out a suicide bombing at a beachfront bar that year that killed three people.

British police named Khan, 30, as a member of a cell that killed at least 55 people in the July 7 bombings in the capital.

Israel downplays connection
A senior Israeli security source said the Maariv report, which cited no evidence, was unsubstantiated. “This is not a concrete finding,” the source said.

Israeli officials are under orders from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon not to draw links between the London attacks and Palestinian militants to avoid offending British sensibilities.

The bombings, which killed 55 people on three Underground trains and a double-decker bus, have prompted the government to propose new legislation outlawing “indirect incitement” of terrorism — including the praising of those who carry out attacks.

But Charles Falconer, the Secretary for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, dismissed a suggestion that the government had been lax in its policies toward political refugees from Muslim countries, thereby helping to make Britain a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic terrorism.

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