July 14, 2002	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 3, 1423

LONDON, July 13: London-based Islamic activists meeting here late on Friday hit out over the “oppression” of Muslims across the world since the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.

During the conference in central London, Abu Hamza, a radical cleric from Finsbury Park mosque in the east of the capital, accused western governments of “trying to terrorise Muslims as much as they terrorise western people”.

Sheikh Omar Bakri, of the Al-Muhajiroun group, read out a letter he said he had “received over the internet” from Abu Qatada, suspected of being the spiritual leader in Europe of Al Qaeda.

“He (Abu Qatada) said that what was going on in Afghanistan is not finished yet. The battle will continue.

“We know very well that the people of Islam are under attack all over the world,” Bakri quoted the letter as saying.

Al-Muhajiroun is a group which has raised funds and volunteers for Islamic fighting groups overseas, according to press reports. Egyptian Islam-ist Yasser al-Siri criticised the conditions in which Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners were being held in a US Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba.

“The US did not give any explanation about why they have been arrested,” he said.

Siri is suspected of involvement in the assassination last year of Afghan opposition leader Ahmad Shah Masood.

Washington wants him extradited from London.—AFP