Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah (organisation)


Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah is a Sunni Islamic sect of Islam.

History

Founded in November 2005 in north London, its head is "Simon" Sulayman Keeler. Also attending the organization's launch were Anjem Choudary, the former head of al-Muhajiroun, Abu Yahya, Abu Izzadeen and Abu Uzair. The group claims up to 1000 members, many of them members of the now-banned groups Al Ghurabaa and The Saved Sect.
ASWJ operates mainly through an invitation-only Internet forum set up in 2006 by Mizanur Rahman called "Followers of Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama'aah Muntada", of which Anjem Choudary is a prominent contributor, under the screen name "Abou Luqman". The forum currently has 700 members. A reporter visiting the site found calls for holy war, and recordings of Osama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and, notably, Omar Bakri Mohammed, the founder of al-Muhajiroun.
In February 2006 ASWJ helped organize the Islamist demonstration outside Danish Embassy in London in 2006.
In November 2006 the BBC programmes File on 4 and Newsnight, in an investigation into the radicalisation of young British Muslims reported that Omar Bakri is regularly broadcasting hate messages against the UK government and non-Muslim people via the Internet, using a range of pseudonyms. His voice was reportedly confirmed by speech analysis experts to be that of Bakri. The BBC penetrated the broadcasts using undercover investigators from the group Vigil.
In December 2006, ASWJ issued a call on one of its websites for Muslims to fight the Ethiopian attack against the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia "financially, physically and verbally". This call was reiterated by Anjem Choudary in early January 2007.
In March 2009 members of the group took part in a protest in Luton at the homecoming parade of British troops returning from Afghanistan.