Rally to honour 9/11 hijackers
2003-09-08 13:44
London - Radical British Islamic group Al-Muhajiroun on Monday hailed the suicide hijackers behind the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001 as the "magnificent 19".
On Thursday's second anniversary of the attacks, Al-Muhajiroun is planning a London rally dedicated to the hijackers who killed more than 3 000 people when they slammed airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York and crashed two others into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.
"I believe that the Muslim community around the world believes those 19 were magnificent," Al-Muhajiroun spokesman Abu Omar told BBC radio.
Quite splendid
"They believe their actions were quite splendid and they believe that many of the activities that have taken place since 9/11 are completely justified in the light of Sharia" or Islamic law."
He added: "All we have done is put the Islamic perspective across. Those 19, what they did and what their behaviour was, in regard to Sharia, was something quite magnificent."
Al-Muhajiroun leader Omar Bakri Mohammed has denied that the fundamentalist group's planned rally would be a celebration of the September 11 atrocities.
"It is an exploration of the causes of the event," Bakri told The Observer newspaper on Sunday.