Anjem Choudary is a leader and the main spokesman of the Islamist group Al Muhajiroun in the United Kingdom.

The British-born Choudary is also a solicitor and chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers, a group remarkably similar in ideology and activity to Al Muhajiroun. In October 2000, for example, the Society of Muslim Lawyers joined Al Muhajiroun in issuing a fatwa against Israel.

Days later in October 2000, Choudary co-signed and issued a “Warning to All Jews…in the UK” that “if you support Israel financially, verbally or physically you will become part of the [Middle East] conflict.” Choudary, in other words, explicitly warned Jews in democratic Great Britain, the mother of parliaments, that if they opened their mouths in support of Israel, they risked being attacked in England by Islamist terrorists.

Choudary in 1999 was chief recruiter in Great Britain for the International Islamic Front (IIF), a group persuading and assisting young British Muslims to undergo “guns and live ammunition” combat training and then go overseas to fight Jihad (“Holy War”) in Chechnya and the Balkans. The head and chief sponsor of IIF in England was the founder of Al Muhajiroun, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad.

Osama bin Laden in 1998 issued a fatwa that declared it a Muslim’s “individual duty” to kill Americans and he created a new organization called the International (or World) Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. Sheikh Bakri Mohammad described himself as the head of the “political wing” of IIF with no “structural link” to bin Laden, according to the India newspaper Indian Express, but the Sheikh acknowledged that “the military wing of the International Islamic Front is run by Osama bin Laden.”

Anjem Choudary explained his own view of the world in the following 2003 interview, titled “In Israel There Are No Civilians,” with reporter Ori Golan of the Jerusalem Post:

Are Muslims in the UK becoming more politicized?

_Undoubtedly the more battlefronts the Muslim society experiences, the more radicalized it becomes. We’ve seen Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Chechnya – and of course Iraq and Palestine. I think this is something which increasingly politicizes the Muslim community.

_What is Jihad?

Jihad is defined by the classical scholars as struggling for the sake of Allah in order to make His name the highest. Jihad dafeh is the defensive type of Jihad protecting life and our property. It can be fulfilled verbally, financially and physically by creating public awareness in favor of Jihad. Jihad _involves fighting on the battlefield to the degree necessary to repel the aggressors._What about killing civilians?

_In Israel there are no civilians. You have to remember that they are occupying Muslim land.

_Including babies and old women who get blown up in the marketplace?

_Those people in the land are occupiers and aggressors and are part of the atrocities which, as far as we’re concerned, are as bad – if not worse – as in Nazi Germany. As far as women are concerned, they are a part of the army. By and large the operations are targeted at people who are part of the army, but invariably innocent people will be caught up in the explosions but this is what we call collateral damage.

_Are all Zionists fair game?

_We would not target anyone who supports Zionism as such; we believe in a healthy debate and dialogue with anyone. But it is one thing having a view and another giving money to kill someone or occupy someone’s land. Anyone involved in killing Muslims or organizing to displace Muslims is part of the enemy.

_Is Islam a peaceful religion?

_No, we can’t say that, because the roots of the word Islam is not peace, but submission – to have complete submission to the Creator.

_What are your feelings about the Briton who carried out the suicide attack in Tel Aviv?

One must be happy for fellow Muslims when they fulfill their obligations. It is a very noble thing. Whenever a Muslim goes to a battlefield and performs a legitimate operation sanctioned by the sharia _(Islamic law), this is something that should bring pleasure to the heart of all Muslims. I pray to Allah that he did this sincerely and had no other objectives but to please Him. If so, then he will get to Paradise._Is there a conflict between being British and Muslim?

_A Muslim can only have one identity. However, the fact that I have a British passport does mean that I have a covenant with the British government. This means that I will not violate the sanctity of any individual here and they will not violate the sanctity of my life. Britain is an aggressor in Iraq and it makes them a target only for people from outside.

_Muslims in Afghanistan or in Iraq have the legitimate right to retaliate. Hence the attack on 9/11 was justifiable under sharia because they had been attacked in 1998. Under sharia _law, for a Muslim from outside to bomb the Israeli embassy in London, would be acceptable._Al Muhajiroun (Arabic for “The Emigrants,” a name its founder says “refers to the early followers of the Prophet Muhammad.”) is a radical Muslim organization based in England that claims to have branches in many other nations.

According to Islam scholar Daniel Pipes, it may be “the most extreme Islamist group operating in the West.”

On its website, Al Muhajiroun describes itself as “not a group or a political party. We are a Jama’ah (collective body) within Ahl us-Sunnah wal Jama’ah (The minority saviour sect) working towards the world-wide domination of Islaam.”

As Choudary noted in the above interview, the very word Islam means “surrender” or “submission” (to Allah). He did not mention that Muslims refer to the combined nations where Islam is the dominant religion as Dar al-Islam, which literally means “the Zone of Submission.”

Al Muhajiroun aims to restore the Caliphate, a monolithic form of religious-political rule of all the world’s Muslims that existed during the succession of four “rightly guided” Caliphs who ruled after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. Every Muslim on Earth would look to this single ruler, and with Islam’s global conquest all human beings will become citizens of a single Nation of Islam.

Osama bin Laden has said that the goal of Al Qaeda is to “unite all Muslims and to establish a government which follows the rule of the Caliphs.”

On the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda terrorist attack on America, Islamist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri marked the day by scheduling a conference to launch a new organization (reportedly funded by Al Muhajiroun with a six-figure cash donation) to be called the Islamic Council of Britain (ICB). ICB’s stated goal is to “implement sharia law in Britain.”

The poster advertising this conference at Sheikh al-Masri’s Finsbury Park mosque in North London featured a large photograph of the World Trade Center towers, one already afire, the other about to be hit by another skyjacked airliner. In large letters the poster read: “September the 11th 2001 A TOWERING DAY IN HISTORY.”

One of the most prominent guests invited by Sheikh al-Masri to attend his conference was the British representative of the Islamic Liberation Party Hizb ut-Tahrir, Dr. Imran Waheed, an advocate of restoring the Caliphate.

Another was the British founder of both this political party and Al Muhajiroun, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, who reported said: “The people at this conference look at September 11 like a battle, as a great achievement by the mujahideen against the evil superpower. I never praised September 11 after it happened but now I can see why they did it.”

Of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorists, Sheikh Bakri Mohammad said: “We don’t perceive them as the U.S. perceives them; we see them as a sincere devoted people who stood firm against the invasion of a Muslim country.”

The third such distinguished guest invited to this conference was Al Muhajiroun’s spokesman Anjem Choudary.

In late July 2011, Choudary orchestrated a campaign by British Muslim extremists who hung bright yellow posters in several London boroughs declaring them “Sharia-controlled zones.” Pasted on bus stops and street lamps, the posters first appeared in the London boroughs of Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Newham. The message they conveyed was that there was to be “no gambling,” “no music or concerts,” “no porn or prostitution,” “no drugs or smoking” and “no alcohol” in the areas where the posters were displayed. The warning at the top read: “You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced.” “We now have hundreds, if not thousands of people up and down the country willing to go out and patrol the streets for us,” said Choudary.

He once called the 9/11 terrorists “magnificent martyrs” and said the July 2005 London subway bombings had been only “a matter of time.” He has also called for the execution of Pope Benedict, saying the Catholic leader had insulted Islam. He is probably best known for a statement he made on a British television show after the interviewer suggested he should move to a country that already had Sharia law if he did not like Great Britain. Enraged, Choudary told the interviewer: “Who told you … that Great Britain belonged to you. The country belongs to Allah! If I were to move to the jungle, I would also not live there like the animals.”