pilgrimages at risk from fraudsters, says radical Muslim cleric
BRIT women travelling to Syria to take part in jihad are being warned fraudsters could be using them to obtain British passports, a radical cleric has warned.
NOTORIOUS: Haitham al-Haddad is already known for radical views on reliogion dynamics [YOUTUBE]
Haitham al-Haddad claims Muslim girls are being lured to the Middle East by conmen looking to enter the UK or, worse still, by Syrian warlords looking to rape or enslave them.
He has posted a video on YouTube in which he says: “(The problem is) Sisters are going to jihad by themselves. I know of a sister who came to know a mujahideen online. She came to know him and they agreed to get married.
“She travelled all the way to Turkey where she met him and got married. She (then) came here. Had no certificate or nothing. She contacted us in the Islamic Sharia Council to produce her a certificate that she got married to this brother so she can join him again.
“I said most likely this is a scam. It is a deceit.
“This man, who is a mujahideen, is responsible to find a way to get a marriage certificate, not she.
“I am writing this to warn the sisters about going to jihad in Syria by themselves”
Haitham al-Haddad, via Twitter
“And if she got married to him there she should go and live there, not come back here.
“Sisters please be careful.”
London-based Haddad, originally from Palestine, has previously hit the headlines for claiming Jewish people are descended from “apes and pigs” and for suggesting people who leave Islam should be executed.
He added: “A few days ago I received an email from one of the original mujahideen (from Afghanistan) now living in Saudi Arabia.
“He wrote on Twitter, ‘I am writing this to warn the sisters about going to jihad in Syria by themselves’.
“He said ‘When we were in Afghanistan many of the women of the mujahideen were raped and taken as slaves by the warlords in Afghanistan’.” Haddad went on: “Do we want this to happen to our sisters just because they want to go to jihad because of zeal and hype?
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“I would like to send this message to our sisters – I strongly advise you not to go to jihad.
“To go there and to become a burden and then you become raped etc etc – this is not the solution.
“Allah never made jihad obligatory.”
Last month we revealed the hardline preacher, inset right, leads a group which was behind attempts to hire out Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire for a Muslim Family Fun Day.
The £100,000 event, organised by Al Haddad’s Muslim Research and Development Foundation, was cancelled amid fears far right thugs were targeting the day out scheduled for last Sunday.
Haddad’s charity had promised a day of “halal entertainment” but his previous views are controversial. He is reported to be on a list of 25 “hate clerics” identified by security bosses and Downing Street as candidates for anti-extremism Asbo banning orders.
Haddad has spoken in favour of a form of female genital mutilation, although he recognises it is illegal in Britain.
And following the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, he wrote that because he was a Muslim he would “enter paradise”.
Haddad’s warnings follow earlier reports revealing scores of British women are travelling to war-town Syria to marry jihadists.
In January Nawal Msaad, 26, was accused of trying to smuggle £16,000 in her underwear to terrorists fighting in Syria.
Msaad, an undergraduate from Holloway, north London, was arrested at Heathrow Airport as she allegedly prepared to board a flight to Istanbul with €20,000 wrapped in cling film in her knickers.