On the eve of four attempted bombings here on Thursday, Sheik Omar Bakri, one of Britain's most outspoken militant clerics, predicted that another terrorist attack would hit London.
In a wide-ranging telephone interview late on Wednesday night, Bakri also blamed the British government for the July 7 terror attacks that killed at least 56 people on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus. He said "hundreds" of young, disaffected British-born Muslims now felt compelled to take action in Britain to protest Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy, especially the support of the US-led invasion in Iraq, which they perceive as anti-Muslim.
"Unless British foreign policy is changed and they withdraw forces from Iraq, I'm afraid there's going to be a lot of attacks, just the way it happened in Madrid and the way it happened in London," he said during a 40-minute conversation.
His preaching is heard or seen by hundreds of people in central London halls and on his Web site, where he has urged young men to fight jihad against "occupiers" in Iraq, Israel and Chechnya. He routinely refers to the Sept. 11 hijackers as "the magnificent 19."
A Syrian-born, 47-year-old father of seven who has lived in North London for 19 years, Bakri was granted asylum in 1986, and receives public assistance of ?300 (US$545) each month. On the cover of the Sun daily on Wednesday, his photograph was accompanied with three bold words: "SEND HIM BAK."
British Home Secretary Charles Clarke has identified Bakri as one of several extremist clerics who could be deported from Britain. As part of a new package of anti-terror legislation, the British government is considering banning clerics from urging people to join a holy war or running a pro-jihad Web site.
Bakri said he would probably leave Britain within the next several days on his own, possibly permanently. He would not say where he intended to go.
"After all, I could worship God here, I could worship God back in Lebanon," he said. "I could do evil here, I could do that back in a Muslim country."
Bakri has encouraged young people to join a "global jihad," but he insisted on Wednesday night that he had never encouraged anyone to strike Britain. In fact, he said, he had urged some young people to take their jihad intentions abroad.
"Nobody said, `Go out in London and bomb,'" he said.
He said he believed that the British government and the British people deserved the blame for the July 7 attacks, saying Blair's re-election on May 5 made the attacks in London "inevitable."
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