British students being recruited to jihadist Facebook groups

Groups calling for armed Jihad active on Facebook Leader of banned organisation claims success in actively recruiting students Terror suspect on trial used networking site up until time of arrest.

Radical British Jihadist groups are actively operating and recruiting students on the social networking site Facebook and other forums, an investigation by The Journal can reveal.

A private Facebook group called ‘Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah’, the name of a successor organisation to the banned extremist group Al Muhajiroun, has been operating since early 2007. Members of the group include several students at British universities such as Sheffield and Manchester and one employee of the financial services giant Citigroup.

The Facebook group has links posted to extremist literature by the jailed radical preachers Abu Hamza al-Misri and Abu Qutada calling for the waging of armed jihad against the British and American governments. There is also literature demanding the expulsion of any Muslim who votes in elections or "provides assistance" to the ‘kuffar’, or nonbeliever.

One article entitled Jihad: a Ten Part Compilation describes violent Jihad as an "individual duty" of all Muslims. The article also includes a religious ruling for young Muslims on the legitimacy of taking up "martyrdom" without informing their parents. It concludes: "No permission [from parents] is required in obligatory jihad.” (...)