A covenant of security

One thing that the world is being continually reminded of as the War on Terror progresses is that no country is safe from the threat of terrorist attacks. Britain learned this the hard way last Thursday, and it goes to show how incredibly wrong many British experts were. There once existed a general consensus among security agencies in the British government that Britain was essentially immune from Islamist violence. The government maintained a peaceful relationship with its native Muslim population for years, which made this a cause for reassurance in regards to terrorism. Obviously, the recent bombings in London changes things. This article in the Jerusalem Post does an excellent job explaining the "covenant of security" that once existed between Britain and its Muslim community that has now been shattered.

In an August 2004 story in the New Statesman, "Why terrorists love Britain," Jamie Campbell cited Mohamed Sifaoui, author of Inside al Qaeda that it has long been recognized by the British Islamists, by the British government and by UK intelligence agencies, that as long as Britain guarantees a degree of freedom to the likes of Hassan Butt [an overtly pro-terrorist Islamist], the terrorist strikes will continue to be planned within the borders of the UK but will not occur there.

Campbell draws from this the perversely ironic conclusion that "the presence of vocal and active Islamist terrorist sympathizers in the UK actually makes British people safer, while the full brunt of British-based terrorist plotting is suffered by people in other countries."

Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian immigrant to the UK who headed al-Muhajiroun, then confirmed the covenant of security, telling about companions of the Prophet Muhammad given protection by the king of Ethiopia. That experience, he told Campbell, led to the Koranic notion of covenant of security: Muslims may not attack the inhabitants of a country where they live in safety. This "makes it unlikely that British-based Muslims will carry out operations in the UK itself."

But in January 2005, Omar Bakri Mohammed determined that the covenant of security had ended for British Muslims because of post-9/11 anti-terrorist legislation that meant "the whole of Britain has become Dar ul-Harb [the Abode of War, the territory open for Muslim conquest]." Therefore, "the kuffar [unbelievers] has no sanctity for their own life or property."

Lovely.