2016-12-28T08:44:00-08:00
“Al-Watan” monitors with documents and testimonies: How British Intelligence created the “Brotherhood” organization
Written by: Sayed Jbeil
“Britain should be proud of its success in providing a safe haven for members of the Muslim Brotherhood over the past three decades. Many of these Brothers came to us escaping imprisonment and torture in countries ruled by corrupt dictators who were strongly supported by the West until the Arab Spring came. Now some of them are returning to their countries of origin to help build new democracies and fortify their countries against possible future dictatorships in the Arab world. This is what he wrote. The former head of the Muslim Liaison Unit in the London Police, Dr. Robert Lambert, in the New Statesman magazine on December 5, 2011, revealing London’s “eternal” relations with the Brotherhood since its inception, and up to the present year, in which Brotherhood leaders are rushing, with the help of Qatar, to seek refuge there. . London’s relationship with the group can be traced through several detailed dates, which clearly show that the group is 100% British made. In 1928, the group arose in the Ismailia region under the watchful eye of the British occupation authorities, and with the support of the largest symbol of the occupation in Misr, the Suez Canal Company, which funded the group with 500 pounds at its beginnings. In 1955, after Abdel Nasser announced the ban on the group and the prosecution of its leaders, the Brotherhood took London as the headquarters for its international activity, and from there to many countries of the world. In the early seventies, Sadat released the Brotherhood and returned them to the political stage under pressure from London and Washington, after Sadat received a letter in 1972, through the head of Saudi intelligence, Kamal Adham, which said: “If you want to support the Americans in your struggle with Israel, you must do two things, the first of which is: The expulsion of the Soviet experts, and the second: the release of the Brotherhood.” In 2005, Washington and London pressured Mubarak to include the Brotherhood in power. This pressure led to the entry of 88 Brotherhood members into parliament. After the overthrow of the Morsi regime in July 2013 and the group’s activity was banned, the Brotherhood quickly returned to their home country, to establish a new headquarters in the Krekle area. Wood, North London; They are running their campaign against the Egyptian government and redrawing the future of the group once again. The American magazine Foreign Policy described London as “the natural place for the Brotherhood outside Misr.” It is actually the main headquarters of the “Ikhwan Online” website in English since its founding in 2005, to present the group as a friendly organization to the West. London was also the headquarters of what was called the “Global Information Center,” which the group established in the 1990s with the aim of delivering the group’s message to the world’s media, and where the Brotherhood’s spokesman for Europe, Ibrahim Mounir, resides, succeeding Kamal Al-Helbawy, who also lived there for years. Jumaa Amin, who is being treated there, recently sought political asylum. There, Khairat Al-Shater resided for several years in the mid-eighties, and there is Zamil Essam Al-Haddad, who spent many years in London, before returning as a political advisor to President Mohamed Morsi, and his son Jihad assumed the task of addressing the international media, and his other son, Abdullah, is active in the Brotherhood’s wing in London. It includes many families, some of which represent the second and third generations of brothers who settled in London decades ago. The magazine, which conducted an investigation from inside this headquarters, pointed out that this hidden headquarters in the corridors of north London has become one of the group’s most active and coordinated arms with its offices in various countries of the world in Misr, the United States, and Europe, in issuing their statements, organizing their protests, and seeking the help of famous British lawyers such as Michael Mansfield to pursue the regime. The current Egyptian. Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi was a regular visitor to Britain. He visited it only 5 times between 1995 and 1997. When some criticized London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s invitation to “Al-Qaradawi” in 2004, an acceptable response to the Foreign Affairs Advisor for Islamic Affairs at the British Foreign Office was that “Al-Qaradawi’s visit could be useful in light of his influence, with regard to the goals of our foreign policies,” and a large number are now seeking Brotherhood leaders and their friends, including a member of the Guidance Office, Mahmoud Hussein, sought refuge in London with the help of Doha, which is facing Arab pressure to hand them over to Misr. Britain’s history of exploiting Islamic groups is old and exceeds 100 years. Under the British occupation and under its auspices, the two largest Sunni Islamic revival movements arose: the “Deobandi Movement” in northern India in 1866 (which was influenced by Abu al-A’la Maududi, the founder of the Islamic Group in Pakistan, who later inspired the takfiri ideas of Sayyid Qutb), and the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. Before we begin to narrate London’s history of supporting the group, we must clarify that the group’s relationship with London or other Western capitals does not mean that the Brotherhood were agents, meaning that they allied out of conviction or under the temptation of money against their countries. What is more accurate is that they were manipulated and exploited for decades to achieve London’s goals, whether with the knowledge of the Brotherhood, due to a pact of interests, or without their knowledge. Historian Dawoud Frumkin summarizes Britain’s position on various Islamic groups in his famous book, “The Peace That Ends All Peace,” by saying, “British leaders always believed that Islam could be manipulated and exploited by buying its religious leaders or defrauding them.” For many reasons, Britain was finding what it sought in the Islamists, and one of these reasons was the focus of some of these groups, led by the Brotherhood, on working with politics and the accumulated experience of English politicians in understanding these groups. Since the end of the 18th century, Britain has enjoyed great influence over the Islamic world. The British Empire included more than half of the peoples of the Islamic world. According to Francis Robinson, a historian specializing in the relationship of Islam with the British Empire, “Britain has always sought to support a traditional Islamic authority as a bulwark for the continuation of its authority, and it often allowed the continuation of Sharia law and strict fundamentalist rule, and this helps explain the failure of Muslims in many Islamic countries that were ruled by the British to respond.” To call on the Ottoman Emperor to wage jihad against Britain, at the beginning of World War I. The author of the book “The Secret History of Britain’s Conspiracy with Islamic Extremists,” Mark Curtis, gives several examples of Britain’s desire and ability to subjugate Islamists and deal with them, the first of which is: the Islamic “Sokoto Caliphate.” In the early 19th century, Sheikh Othman bin Fodi raised the banner of jihad to renew Islam, and was able to unify the Hausa emirates under one central authority represented by the Sokoto Caliphate (1802-1903), which was established in northern Nigeria and included 30 emirates. Under this caliphate, Islam became the supreme political force in Nigeria and Sharia law was applied throughout the Sultanate. Britain decided to crush this rebellious Sultan with its cannons, but after his brutal defeat in 1902, the British preferred to keep the Sultan of Sokoto. This emirate turned into a model of “indirect rule,” which Britain later repeated in other colonies. In Sudan, the British defeated the Mahdist movement in 1898, but by the 1920s Britain had come to regard their leader, Mr. Abdul Rahman, as “an ally who could secure the loyalty of many Sudanese.” The Brotherhood’s political ambition was apparently what most tempted the English to take an interest in their organization. In a lengthy analysis entitled “The Brotherhood: Many Faces in the Service of Her British Majesty’s Court,” Pakistani researcher Ram Tenor Mitra states that British intelligence penetrated the Brotherhood from its early days and benefited from it, even when the group wanted to support the German Nazis in their war against Britain. Shortly after the founding of the group, British intelligence agent Freya Stark appeared on the scene, who later gained great fame as a Jew-hating orientalist and opponent of English colonial policies. But the truth is that “Stark” cooperated with British intelligence to confront Nazi influence in Aden, Cairo, and Baghdad, and while she was in Cairo, she established the “Freedom Brotherhood” association to track the activities of the Germans in North Africa. She quickly established contacts with the “Brotherhood” and became a source of information for London about many… The various political movements that emerged in Misr, with the help of Al-Banna and his group. In other words, “the Brotherhood was, from its inception, a ‘bird’ for the benefit of British intelligence,” as the researcher described it.[FirstQuote] According to former Attorney General in the US State Department John Loftus, who wrote extensively about the Brotherhood’s relationship with the Nazis, “Mr. Al-Banna” was He greatly admired a young Austrian writer named Adolf Hitler, and his letters to Hitler revealed great support for his ideas. When Hitler came to power in the 1930s, he asked Nazi intelligence to contact Banna to see if he could work with him. The political and military alliance between the Brotherhood and Nazi Germany flourished, and resulted in official visits to the group by “actual” German ambassadors and public and secret joint projects between the two parties. Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, helped distribute Arabic translations of Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” thus helping to fuel the growing hostility toward the Al-Yahoud and their Western supporters. When World War II broke out, Al-Banna worked to strengthen his alliances with Hitler and Mussolini, sending them letters with envoys, urging them to help him in his struggle against the British and the Western regime of King Farouk in Misr. The group’s intelligence service, “infiltrated by British intelligence,” actually worked to establish a spy network for Nazi Germany throughout the Arab world, collecting information about the most important figures of the regime in Cairo and the movements of the British army, and providing this and other information to the Germans in exchange for closer relations. According to Loftus, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Effendi Amin al-Husseini, the representative of the Brotherhood in Palestine, played a vital role in contacting Hitler. But all of this was happening under the nose and nose of British intelligence, which controlled both Palestine and Misr. Indeed, the appointment of “Al-Husseini” as mufti came by a direct decision between the years 1917-1948 from the British, despite strong protests from most Palestinian Arabs, as well as from Jewish settlers against his appointment. . Despite the strong ties between Al-Husseini and the Nazis, the British and the Zionists worked to escalate it, as it was not hidden from the British High Commissioner in Palestine, Sir Herbert Samuel – a Zionist Jew – the truth about Al-Husseini’s tendencies and contacts with the Nazis, as well as his role in the struggle against the Al-Yahoud, specifically in The “Bloody Passover” massacre of Al-Yahoud in Jerusalem in 1920. After a failed attempt to launch a pro-Nazi uprising in Iraq, the Mufti fled to Europe to mobilize Arab forces to fight the war in the ranks of the Third Reich. But what is striking, according to Loftus, is that “although Al-Husseini was considered a war criminal (by Britain), it did not pursue him in Misr, to which he came after that.”[SecondQuote] And according to “Mark Curtis” in his book “The Secret History of a Conspiracy.” Britain with Islamic extremists. Which relied on official secret documents released by the British government. The first direct and public contact between British officials and the Brotherhood occurred in 1941. Immediately after that, the Brotherhood began its next phase: the establishment of the “secret apparatus.” Beginning in 1941-1942, the Brotherhood established an intelligence arm, which quickly transformed into a paramilitary organization. Curtis points out in his book that by 1942, Britain had certainly begun to finance the Brotherhood. On May 18, 1942, British embassy officials held a meeting with Egyptian Finance Minister Amin Othman Pasha, in which relations with the Brotherhood were discussed and it was agreed that “the delegation government will secretly pay financial aid to the Brotherhood, in addition to other aid to the group that the British embassy will provide, provided that the Egyptian government By planting its agents within the group to closely monitor the group’s activities and inform the British side of this information… We, for our part, will inform the government of any information (related to the group) that we obtain from British sources.”[SecondImage] After the defeat of the Nazis and the assassination of Al-Banna in 1949 In response to the group’s assassination of Egyptian Prime Minister Fahmi Al-Nakrashi, the group’s relationship with Britain remained strong. In October 1951, the new guide, Hassan Al-Hudaybi, announced his opposition to the violence in which the group was involved between 1945 and 1949. But it happened that in 1951, the Brotherhood called for jihad against the British and targeting their property. But this invitation was a “theatrical play,” or as Ram Tenor Mitra described it, like “a circus show of dog and horse.” A report by the British Embassy from Cairo in late 1951, mentioned by Mark Curtis in his book, stated: “The Brotherhood has had a terrorist organization for a long time, and security efforts have never succeeded in eliminating it. But the report downplayed the importance of the Brotherhood’s intentions to target the British, noting that they “plan to send terrorists to the Canal Zone, but they do not really intend to send Her Majesty’s forces, that is, the British forces.” Another report indicated that although the Brotherhood was involved in some attacks against the British, this was due to individual actions or “lack of discipline,” and contradicted the policies of the organization’s leaders. The secret files, which later became available in the British archives, show that British officials tried to arrange a direct meeting with Hassan Al-Hudaybi in December 1951. They actually held several meetings with one of his advisors, called “Farkhani Bey,” about whom little information was available. He was not – apparently – a member of the Brotherhood. There are many indications in the secret files that confirm that the Brotherhood leaders, despite their public calls for attacks on the British, were fully prepared to meet them secretly. Before this time, according to British Foreign Office correspondence, the Egyptian government had offered “enormous bribes” to entice the Brotherhood not to become involved in further violence against the regime. In early 1953, Abdel Nasser was busy completing the British evacuation from Misr as the end of the 1936 agreement approached, but he was surprised when the British side held meetings with Al-Hudaybi. No one knows exactly what took place in these meetings, but the famous historian Richard Mitchell later wrote that “the Brotherhood entered into these negotiations at the request of the British, which created difficulties for the Egyptian government’s negotiators, providing the British side with a tool to influence the revolutionary government.” At the time, Abdel Nasser’s government condemned these meetings as “secret negotiations behind the revolution’s back.” Abdel Nasser accused the British of conspiring with the Brotherhood, and accused Al-Hudaybi of accepting conditions for evacuation that escaped the hands of the Egyptian government. According to a memorandum of a meeting of the British Embassy in Cairo dated February 7, 1953, a Brotherhood leader named “Abu Burqiq” told the honorary advisor to the British Embassy, “Trevoz Evans,” that “If Misr searches all over the world for a friend, it will find no one but Britain.” The embassy interpreted this phrase as follows: The presence of a group of Brotherhood leaders ready to cooperate with Britain. Evans added in a telegram sent to the British Foreign Office on February 19, 1953: “This statement, although surprising, may be explained by the increase of the middle class in the group compared to the popular leadership originally in the days of Hassan al-Banna.” On July 26, 1956, Abdel Nasser did what he should have done decades earlier: expelled the British colonialists from the Suez Canal area. In a calm speech, which London described as “hysterical,” on July 26 in Alexandria, Abdel Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, which in purely legal terms was nothing more than a decision to buy out the shares of foreign shareholders. Stephen Dorrell narrates the details of the British reaction to this step in his book “Inside the Secret World of Her Majesty’s Intelligence” as follows: (That night in Downing Street, the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, exploded in anger and summoned the war council that had been in session. Until four in the morning. At this meeting, “Eden” shouted to his colleagues, “We must not allow Nasser to put his hands on our windpipes… We must destroy this “Muslim Mussolini.” And Eden added: “I want to remove him, and I do not care what the consequences might be.” This is chaos in Misr. Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill was present at this meeting, so he increased the flames when he said, “You must tell the Egyptians: ‘If they bother us again with their insolence, we will unleash the Al-Yahoud on them to bring them back to the bottom, from which they should never have gotten out.’” . In another call, angry at the slow pace of the campaign against Abdel Nasser, Eden said to one of his aides – according to historian Evelyn Schack Brah in his book “The Origins of the Suez Crisis, Diaries of the State Department between 1951 and 1956,” which was published in 1986: “What is all this nonsense that you sent? to me? What is all this empty talk about isolating Nasser or “neutralizing” him as you call him? I want to destroy him. Don’t you understand? “I want him killed.” The British found only their allies, the Brotherhood, to carry out this mission. The attempt to assassinate Abdel Nasser on October 26, 1954 was the beginning of the liquidation of the Brotherhood in Misr, but this liquidation was “a setback for the Western powers that wanted to get rid of Nasser or kill him.”[ThirdQuote] According to the Pakistani researcher “Mitra,” banning the group and Nasser’s arrest of its leaders did not eliminate it and led to It spread throughout the world, and from under its cloak more extremist groups emerged after most of the Brotherhood moved to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Syria, and in some Western countries such as West Germany. But no country has contributed more than Britain to embracing this group, with all its branches and names. British protection for Islamic terrorism leaders began years ago, but it is difficult to determine a specific date for the beginning of this relationship. Mitra monitors three reasons for the group’s popularity and survival despite all the attempts of Abdel Nasser and others to suppress it. The first is that the Egyptian people were not fully aware of the real forces that control the Brotherhood. The second is the group’s discourse, which appears to be truly opposed to the Western colonial powers and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Third, the intensification of the Cold War, which enhanced the group’s value to Western countries in their war against the Soviet Union. A section of Western decision-makers “considered the Brotherhood to be the poison that could kill the communists.” This became clear in the 1980s, when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, and the West (backed by the Saudis and the rest of the Gulf states) sent its mujahideen waving flags of Islamic jihad. These were followers of the Brotherhood, who worked under different organizational structures. Many Western analysts and researchers believe that British politicians hated and despised the Brotherhood, and even considered them a threat to them, but they could be manipulated and take advantage of their extremism temporarily. This position is illustrated, for example, by a letter from the British embassy in Jordan in early 1957 saying that the Brotherhood’s activity is “provoking disturbances” and that Their official publications consider the British and Al-Nasarah in Jordan as the main targets of the organization. The British ambassador to Jordan, Charles Johnston, noted in a report submitted to the Foreign Office in February 1957 that “the Brotherhood organization in Jordan is led by a group of narrow-minded local fanatics whose followers are mostly illiterate,” but that it has the advantage that it “opposes the strong left-wing parties, and that it Just as it attacks the British and Americans, it attacks the communists.” Indeed, the Brotherhood proved its importance to Britain when a crisis arose between their ally and the most important Western men in the region, King Hussein, and his prime minister, Suleiman al-Nabulsi, the winner of the first democratic elections in Jordan in 1957. In this dispute, the Brotherhood sided with the Americans, the British, and the Saudis against Nabulsi, who wanted to Aligning with Syria and Abdel Nasser to defeat Western influence in Jordan. According to a memorandum written by the British ambassador, Charles Johnston, in Amman, “the Brotherhood in Jordan remain loyal to His Majesty,” and although all political parties were considered illegal, King Hussein allowed them to continue their work, ostensibly because of their religious message, but in reality because the king and his allies considered them the most capable. To confront the leftists and secularists, the Brotherhood’s preachers appealed to their followers to help the authorities in searching for and arresting the government’s communist supporters. It was said that the king provided the Brotherhood with weapons to terrorize the leftist opposition in the city of Jericho. And again, Johnston wrote: “The Brotherhood was useful to King Hussein in April as they represented… A strong arm organization that, when necessary, can be unleashed on left-wing extremists in the streets.”[ThirdImage] The recruitment of Islamists to attack the Soviet Union in Afghanistan is a well-known story now. But what many do not know is London’s role in employing these groups, including the Brotherhood. For example, British Intelligence was the one who launched “Radio Free Kabul” immediately after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The one who supervised it was Allah Nicholas Pitt Hill, the MI6 intelligence official responsible for the Middle East and the Soviet Union. This Allah was also the one who founded what is known as the “Free Afghanistan Committee” in 1981 following a visit by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Beth Hill to the United States, the aim of which was to support the Mujahideen. Through this committee, funds were provided to the “Peshawar Seven” wings, which included all the Mujahideen. Osama bin Laden had an office in London through which he managed jihad activities through what was known as the Jihad Committee at the time, which included the Islamic Group in Misr, the Jihad Organization in Yemen, the Pakistani Al-Hadith Group, the Lebanese Al-Ansar Group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and the Bayt Al-Imam Group in Jordan. And the Islamic Group in Algeria. The Brotherhood did not lose its importance to London during President Mubarak’s rule, as they were always keen to contact the group’s leaders, especially after concern began to mount about the fate of the Mubarak regime. A letter sent by Sir Derek Plumbly, the British ambassador to Cairo, to the former ambassador to Cairo, John Sawyers, dated June 2005 (leaked to the British magazine Newsman, which published it on February 20, 2006), explains that the goal of contacting the Brotherhood in Misr is useful, because “ “We may obtain information from them,” which is consistent with London’s strategy of recruiting extremists to serve as its guides. He added: “Britain’s interest in Misr is to put pressure on the Mubarak regime to promote political reform… and the path to achieving this goal is bumpy and undoubtedly involves the Brotherhood exerting a greater degree of pressure on the street.” This clearly means – as Mark Curtis says – that London considers The Brotherhood is a tool of influence to bring about internal change. The ambassador did not suggest supporting the Brotherhood directly so that London would not completely undermine its relationship with the Mubarak regime, but he said in text: “If the Brotherhood is suppressed aggressively, the matter will require a response from us.” There is conclusive evidence that supporting the Brotherhood after the Arab Spring revolutions was not a spontaneous policy, but rather a strategic decision taken by London several years ago that preceded the Arab Spring. In August 2006, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair delivered a speech in which he outlined Britain’s foreign policy in the Middle East, before… The World Affairs Council in Los Angeles: “There is an arc of extremism currently extending across the Middle East, and its defeat requires the establishment of an alliance of moderation that charts a future in which Muslims, Al-Yahoud, Arab and Western Al-Nasarah can achieve progress.” He said more clearly: “The Middle East is witnessing a fundamental conflict between Islam and reactionary and moderate and prevailing Islam.” In the same year, the New Statesman magazine published a report revealing that Britain was planning to engage with the Brotherhood (which represents moderate Islam for them). The prestigious British magazine noted that a prominent official in the Foreign Ministry for Israeli, Arab, and North African affairs submitted a memorandum in which he suggested… Senior officials in various departments of the British government should engage with political Islam, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood in Misr, and recommended that the United States and European Union countries follow London’s example. The New Statesman revealed the existence of a study prepared by the British intelligence service MI6 in which it confirmed to the British government that “the Brotherhood has not been involved in direct violence, although some donations may find their way to Hamas and other terrorist groups.” A joint memorandum between the British Home and Foreign Ministries in July 2004 on “Working with the Islamic Community in Britain” was also leaked to the New Statesman magazine, which stated that those leading the religious reform movement in the Islamic world are the Brotherhood and the (Pakistani) Islamic Group, and both of them want to adhere to True religion, but they are “pragmatic movements,” and cooperation can be done with them, as has actually happened over the past decades. One of the authors of this memorandum, Angus McKee, from the Middle East and North Africa Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explained that most Islamic movements are “wary of the motives of the West, but are prepared to deal with it,” and unlike the rest of the opposition forces, they are “well-organized.” It is also less corrupt than the majority in the societies in which it operates, and therefore it is necessary to think about directing aid resources through it. There was a more important study written by Basil Eastwood, the former British ambassador to Syria, and Richard Murphy, Assistant Secretary of State in the administration of US President Ronald Reagan, entitled “We must talk to political Islamists in the Middle East, not just in Iraq.” She noted This study, which was carefully circulated and studied in Western decision-making circles, indicated that “for an entire year they were in prolonged contact with representatives of the Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and concluded that there was a difference between the Islamists who wanted change without using violence and the extremist jihadists who carried weapons.” After that, the two officials said: “The G8 should currently, and perhaps indirectly, begin dialogue with these movements and involve them in the civil society process in the Greater Middle East Initiative.” Five months after writing this study, the Brotherhood – after pressure from Washington and London on President Mubarak – won 88 seats in the parliamentary elections in November 2005. Curtis believes that what Britain did with the Brotherhood was also aimed at “securing itself in the event of a change in the Mubarak regime, its fall, or the outbreak of a revolution.” He adds that “Britain was not at all concerned with the issue of democracy, not only because of Britain’s long history of suppressing governments and popular movements.” In the region, but also because these movements are often more hostile to the West.” He adds, “Britain still considers the Brotherhood a deterrent force and a repellent to secular, nationalist, and leftist forces, including the Kifaya Movement, which appeared in 2004.” Until early 2010, there was no mention of “Kifaya” in Parliament or on the British Foreign Office’s website. This is evidence of how far this movement is from the radar screen of British politics, and perhaps they believe that the Brotherhood is an impenetrable barrier to any more popular national change that might represent a threat to their interests. In fact, London’s support was not limited to the Brotherhood, but rather extended to include all spectrums of fundamentalist groups. The French were the first to call the British capital “Londonistan” in the 1990s, because of the number of extremist groups that London harbors under the protection of its government and intelligence agencies. During this period, the French security services began to feel concerned and frustrated by the increasing presence of Algerian Islamists, who used London as a rear base to launch a terrorist campaign against France. They mostly belonged to the Armed Islamic Group, which assassinated Algerian President Mohamed Boudiaf in June 1992. This group received its orders from its leaders, such as Abu Musab and Sheikh Abu Qutaiba, whom London granted political asylum in 1992 after a ruling was issued. He was sentenced to death in Algeria for being convicted of a bombing at Algiers airport. These leaders were working through what is known as the “Ansar Group” in London. There is also the leader of the London-based Armed Islamic Group, Abu Fares, who supervised operations against France. This man was granted asylum by London in Britain in 1992, after he had been sentenced to death in Algeria for confessing responsibility for the same operation in which 9 people were killed and 125 injured at the Algiers airport. He was also accused of bombing three Paris metro stations and an open market. France asked London to extradite some terrorists in connection with bombings in Paris during the 1980s, but the British authorities refused and insisted on their right to asylum, provided that they had not committed any crimes on its territory. Among the most famous Brotherhood leaders who were embraced by London (whose levels of embrace varied, between granting political asylum in some cases, the right to reside indefinitely, or granting citizenship)… Britain received the head of the Tunisian Ennahdha Party, “Rashid Ghannouchi,” after he left Tunisia. After completing a prison sentence for being convicted by Zine El Abidine’s government of terrorist crimes in 1989. Ghannouchi resided there for 22 years, returning to rule Tunisia through the Ennahda Party after the fall of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. London was a safe haven. For a number of members of the Libyan Fighting Group, which used its members to liquidate Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Britain provided refuge for the Syrian Omar Bakri Fostak (known as Omar Bakri Muhammad), who founded with Farid Qasim a new branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir in 1986. Omar Bakri had arrived in Britain after being expelled from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he sought refuge to escape the persecution of the late President Hafez al-Assad, but he became involved in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in an extremist group called the “Al-Muhajiroun” group. Now Hizb ut-Tahrir is involved in terrorist operations in Central Asia, Pakistan, and northern Lebanon. In the 1990s, the Egyptian authorities repeatedly complained about London’s insistence on providing safe haven for a large number of extremist groups, including the leaders of the Islamic Group who carried out the famous Luxor massacre, but the British authorities repeatedly rejected the Egyptians’ request. On December 14, 1997, Foreign Minister Amr Moussa summoned the British Ambassador to Misr, Dawoud Boltwick, and handed him an official memorandum demanding that the British government “stop providing a safe haven for terrorists, and cooperate with Misr in combating terrorism.” In an interview with The Times of London on the same day, Moussa called on Britain to “stop the flow of money from Islamic extremists in London to terrorist groups in Misr, and to ban British mosque preachers who call for the assassination of foreign leaders.” The newspaper added that “Moussa was very angry.” From reports confirming that extremist groups harbored in London sent 2.5 million pounds sterling to the Islamic Group in Misr. The Saudis complained several times to the British authorities about their hosting of the opposition figure, Mohammed Al-Masari, who calls for the overthrow of the House of Saud, and they insisted that he be handed over to them. He was said to be connected to Osama bin Laden, who had a headquarters in the upscale Wembley neighborhood in London. According to the same sources, the “consultation” committee, run by Khaled Fawaz, was affiliated with “Bin Laden” and was based in London. Of course, this hosting was not free of charge, and Mark Curtis, after long research in his book, arrived at London’s goals for hosting these groups. The first is that “British intelligence services were convinced that hosting a variety of extremist groups in London was useful for reinforcing London’s old divide-and-rule policy. Terrorist activities could raise tensions and put pressure on countries by undermining their leadership or separating countries from each other, and these are functions that London considered necessary at certain times.” In the post-World War II world. Curtis points to several examples, the most famous of which is the preacher Abu Hamza al-Masry, whom Britain refused to hand over to the Egyptians, and provided him with all support and protection on its soil, in exchange for obtaining information from him about the activities of extremist groups that frequented the “Vencery Park” mosque in London, which was “Abu Hamza” was his imam for years. Second: London considered the presence of the leaders of these groups on its territory an “insurance policy” in the event of the fall of fragile regimes in the region, as happened after the Arab Spring. Mark Curtis gives the example of London hosting the “Islamic Reform Movement” in the Arabian Peninsula and the “Bin Laden Committee for Consultation and Reform,” believing in London that these may be the leaders of the future in the event of the fall of the Al Saud regime. A clearer example is the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Misr and Tunisia, who returned from London after the Arab Spring to rule their countries. Third: These groups served as an instrument of influence on the internal and foreign policies of major countries. The presence of these groups in London “enabled British intelligence to spy on their activities and gain a form of influence on the internal policies of their countries of origin.” For example, London used Bin Laden’s office. » In the mid-nineties as a tool of pressure on the Saudi regime. Fourth: London used these groups to destroy countries, as it did in Kosovo in the early nineties, and the Soviet Union by supporting the Chechen mujahideen. Fifth: The British government directly uses some Islamists on its soil to eliminate unwanted leaders. For example, former British MI6 officer Dawoud Schiller exposed the British security services’ assignment of an Islamic terrorist group based in London to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in February 1996. Sixth: And most importantly: these groups helped keep the Middle East region divided and weak in a way that enables the West to drain its wealth without significant opposition from national forces. The clearest example of this is the role these groups played in getting rid of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who threatened the interests of Britain and the United States in his country’s oil in the 1950s. The British agent and famous author, John Coleman, summed up the reality of the Brotherhood for the West in harsh words, in which he said: “The Brotherhood is a secret Masonic sect that arose with the support of pioneers of British intelligence, such as T. E. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and St. John Philby, with the aim of “keeping the Middle East region backward.” So they can plunder its oil resources.”