An east London-based preacher is leading a group of Islamists who have joined the armed conflict against President Bashar Al-Assad’s Syrian regime.
Abu Basir al-Tartusi can be seen on the balcony of a building surrounded by rebels jubilantly waving Kalashnikovs in a video posted on the internet.
The cleric, whose real name is Abdal Munem Mustafa Halima, has led seminars at the al-Ansar Insititute, a recently-established religious centre in Poplar which offers free classes and is said to have a growing reputation among young Muslims in the area.
He is believed to be one of a number of men who have travelled from London to the warring country to take up arms and has been based in the UK since fleeing the Assad regime in the 1980s.
Though he is a supporter of armed jihad and has been associated with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, he says suicide operations are “forbidden” under Islam and believes in a “covenant of security” between Muslims and non-Muslims in the west.
Basir’s actions in Syria have been praised by online discussion sites frequented by fundamentalists.
In one posting a member of an internet forum thread entitled “Sheikh Abu Basir al-Tartusi liberates Syrian Town with the Mujahideen” wrote: “He walks the walk.”
The cleric’s use of social media has been sited by some commentators as a means of radicalising young men. Pictures posted on Facebook show the cleric standing amid ruins in besieged cities.
