WASHINGTON: The US State Department on Friday added five militants to its list of global terrorists, including Anjem Choudary, who was allegedly associated with a group that once ran a safe house in Lahore.

The other four are El Shafee Elsheikh, Sami Bouras, Shane Dominic Crawford, and Mark John Taylor.

The official US notification identified Anjem Choudary as “a British extremist with links to convicted terrorists and extremist networks in the UK, including the proscribed Al-Muhajiroun group.”

Al-Muhajiroun is a banned extremist organisation that was based in Britain but also ran a Lahore safe house for visiting British Muslims. The group operated in Britain from January 14, 1986 to August 2005. In January 2010, the British government banned Al-Muhajiroun.

Anjem Choudary was arrested in September 2014 for pledging allegiance to the militant Islamic State group and for facilitating the IS recruitment drive.

He was sentenced to prison in September 2016. Choudary has stated that he will continue his recruitment activities from prison. Born in the UK on January 18, 1967, Anjem Choudary is the son of a Welling market trader and is of Pakistani descent.

Information released by the US State Department shows that El Shafee Elsheikh travelled to Syria in 2012, joined Al Qaeda’s local branch, and later joined the militant Islamic State group. In May 2016, Elsheikh was identified as a member of the IS execution cell known as “The Beatles,” a group accused of beheading more than 27 hostages and torturing many more.

Elsheikh was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an IS jailer.

Sami Bouras is a Swedish citizen of Tunisian descent who is an alleged member of Al Qaeda and who has been involved with planning suicide attacks.

Shane Dominic Crawford is a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and the State Department identified him as a foreign terrorist fighter in Syria carrying out terrorist activity on behalf of IS, including acting as an English language propagandist for the group.

Mark John Taylor is a New Zealand national who has been fighting in Syria with IS since the fall of 2014. Taylor has used social media, including appearing in a 2015 IS propaganda video, to encourage terrorist attacks in Australia and New Zealand, the State Department said.

“Elsheikh, Choudary, Bouras, Crawford, and Taylor have committed or pose a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism,” the notification warned.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2017