By IANS,
London : At least 35 Muslim men were trained at mosques in London for committing acts of terror, according to documents written by US military officials at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre that were revealed by WikiLeaks.
The WikiLeaks files reveal that the 35 terrorists detained at Guantanamo were radicalised in London mosques before being sent to fight against the West.
Among the 35, just 17 were British nationals or had been granted asylum, while 18 had come from abroad.
US intelligence officers described the Finsbury Park mosque in north London as a “haven for Islamic extremists from Morocco and Algeria” and “an attack planning and propaganda production base”, the Daily Mail reported.
After their trip to Britain, they were flown to Pakistan and Afghanistan where they were taught to fight and make bombs.
The WikiLeaks documents show that an Al Qaeda member, accused of bombing two churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan, was at the same time working for MI6.
Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili was captured in 2003 and sent to Guantanamo Bay where interrogators were convinced that he was an informer for the British intelligence.
The 35-year-old Algerian national was described as a “facilitator, courier, kidnapper, and assassin for Al Qaeda”.
US officials found him “to have withheld important information from British Secret Intelligence Service and to be a threat to US and allied personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan”.
The WikiLeaks documents, published by the Daily Telegraph, revealed that 16 detainees sent back to Britain were regarded as “high risk” by the US, and capable of plotting acts of terror.
In spite of that, each of them was paid one million pounds by the government to compensate them for their detention.
London-based preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza played crucial roles in the training of extremists, before they were sent across the world to plot terror attacks, the files said.
Qatada has been described as “the most successful recruiter in Europe” and “a focal point for extremist fundraising (and) recruitment”.
The Al Qaeda’s chief European agent was paid 2,500 pounds for being “unlawfully detained” by the British government, after being held indefinitely without trial following the 9/11 attack.
A court found that keeping him in prison, while he refused to return to his native Jordan, breached human rights to a fair trial.
In the documents, Hamza was said to encourage “his followers to murder non-Muslims”.
Three other mosques and an Islamic centre were also highlighted as places where Muslim men were trained as potential terrorists.