Political Militant Islam portal Al-Muhajiroun (Arabic: المهاجرون, "The Emigrants") is a proscribed terrorist[1][2] network based in Saudi Arabia and active for many years in the United Kingdom.

[10] The organisation has used the following names; Al Ghurabaa (2004–2006), The Saved Sect (2005–2006), Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah (2005–2009),[11] Islam4UK (2009–2010),[12][13] Muslims Against Crusades (2010–2011) and since then Need4Khilafah, the Shariah Project and the Islamic Dawah Association.

In the eyes of the Middle Eastern leadership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, Omar Bakri had become a liability to their organisation due to various extravagant statements he had made; justifying the assassination of Prime Minister John Major, stating that Queen Elizabeth II would convert to Islam and telling Bosniaks to reject American food aid during the Yugoslav Wars and to "eat Serbs" instead.

Omar Bakri openly discussed living on Jobseeker's Allowance and the group publicly protested in favour of the Sharia, against homosexuality and other aspects in contemporary British society that it considered to be immoral.

Yotam Feldner of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a pro-Israeli group, cites reports from Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly in November 1998, whereby Omar Bakri is alleged to have presented himself as a spokesman for Osama bin Laden's "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.

Abu Qatada; who was associated with the Jordanian group Jaysh Mohammad and would later write sympathetically about the activities of Osama bin Laden; spoke at a Al-Muhajiroun meeting in November 1999 to raise funds for mujahideen fighters in Chechnya (as part of the Second Chechen War).

Contacts were also maintained between Omar Bakri's group and other London exiles who spoke at Al-Muhajiroun gatherings; Yassir al-Sirri of Vanguards of Conquest and Mohammad al-Massari of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

[21] In the early days of New Labour, Home Secretary Jack Straw even appointed Al-Muhajiroun activist Makbool Javaid (brother-in-law of future Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan)[23] to a newly formed Race Relations Forum.

This was in the aftermath of the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, a joint operation by Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaeda (the two would merge in 2001), killing 224 people.

The "Londonistan" situation, as it was known, had long being criticised by some of the leading Arab world governments such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and others, who regarded the groups as a threat to their national security also.

[24] Tony Blair, who was the Labour Party's Prime Minister at the time of the arrests, two decades later in 2017 accused al-Sibai of having radicalised members of the so-called "Beatles" group of ISIS militants, including "Jihadi John" (Mohammed Emwazi) and El Shafee Elsheikh.

Two years later in 2000, the first British-born suicide bomber Mohammed Bilal Ahmed of Birmingham, blew himself up at an Indian Army barracks in Jammu and Kashmir, killing nine people.

According to a report Hope not Hate, a self-described anti-fascist group closely linked to the British Labour Party, Omar Bakri bragged of connections between Al-Muhajiroun and the so-called "Tipton Three" (Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul), who were arrested in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban and held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Later the same month, during a raid on a flat in Crumpsall, north Manchester, DC Stephen Oake was murdered with a kitchen knife by Kamel Bourgass, an illegal immigrant from Algeria.

Nevertheless, Colin Powell in his February 2003 presentation to the United Nations, arguing for commissioning the Iraq War based on alleged connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, made reference to a "UK Poison Cell" as part of an international network.

[35] Home Secretary Charles Clarke banned Omar Bakri Muhammad from the United Kingdom on 12 August 2005 on the grounds that his presence was "not conducive to the public good.

[46] In January 2010 the group gained widespread media attention by announcing plans to hold a protest march through Wootton Bassett; an English town where unofficial public mourning takes place for corteges of armed forces personnel killed on active service, as they make their way from RAF Lyneham to Oxford.

[48] The announcement was condemned by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who said that plans for the march were "disgusting" and that "to offend the families of dead or wounded troops would be completely inappropriate".

[49] The Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, indicated he would agree to any request from the Wiltshire Police or local government to ban the march under Section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986.

[50] Choudary said he chose Wootton Bassett to attract maximum attention and, he asserted, 500 members of Islam4UK would carry 'symbolic coffins' in memory of the Muslim civilians 'murdered by merciless' coalition forces.

[59] In a further statement, issued on the same day via their website, they stated that "Islam4UK has been contacted by authorities to (force) shut down its operations, we stress this domain name will no longer be used by us, but the struggle for Khilafah (aka "the Caliphate") will continue regardless of what the disbelievers plot against the Muslims.

[59] The ban has led some ("the left", according to Sunny Hundal writing in The Guardian) to criticise it as a "blow to free expression",[60] which will "serve to undermine the government’s effort to prevent violent extremism".

[62] The network re-emerged as Muslims Against Crusades (abbreviated MAC), notionally under Abu Assadullah in 2010,[63] featuring members of Islam4UK after their banning such as boxer Anthony Small and Anjem Choudary.

MAC engaged in a number of incidents including protests outside the Royal Albert Hall and in Kensington on 11 November 2010, when two large plastic poppies were burned during the Remembrance Day silence.

[74][75] They later cancelled their protest due to a "possible danger to life"[76][77] On 2 May 2011 Osama bin Laden, who had led the Islamist al-Qaeda organization responsible for violent attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001, was killed in Pakistan by US forces.

On 30 July around 50 members of MAC and Waltham Forest Muslims marched for two hours from Leyton tube station to Walthamstow town square calling for democracy to be replaced by sharia law and chanted slogans such as 'democracy—hypocrisy', 'Sharia for UK' and 'Secularism go to hell'.

The protest could be heard by mourners in 11 September Memorial Garden nearby, where a minute's silence was being observed to mark the first aeroplane hitting the World Trade Centre in New York City.

Their general worldview; with a heavy focus on a pan-Islamist-orientated worldwide caliphate is derived directly from its parent organisation Hizb al-Tahrir (founded by Taqiuddin al-Nabhani) as espoused by Omar Bakri Muhammad.

[87]On 29 April 2003, Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif, who attended some of Al-Muhajiroun's circles, carried out a bombing of a café in Tel Aviv, Israel, that killed three people and injured 60 others.

According to Professor Anthony Glees, director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies: The fertiliser bomb trial has given us the smoking-gun evidence that groups like al-Muhajiroun have had an important part in radicalising young British Muslims, and that this can create terrorists.