By: Elham Asaad Buaras
Source: MuslimNews.co.uk
A Muslim convert who spent years in Luton and was heavily involved with Luton’s Al Muhajiroun group is claiming he was actually undercover for the CIA.
Morten Storm confessed to a Danish newspaper earlier this month he was working for the Danish intelligence service (PET), the CIA and MI6.
The claims have left mosque leaders in Luton, who say they spoke to Storm about his extremist views on many occasions, furious.
When he arrived in Luton in 1999, Storm told religious leaders he had come to learn about Islam in what he saw as a safe haven for Muslims.
He told Jyllands-Posten he had been recruited by PET in 2006, and claims he led the CIA to al-Qa’ida leader Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was killed in a drone attack last September. PET has refused to comment on his claims.
According to the newspaper Storm, who had been known as ‘Murad Danish’ during his time in Luton, was under the command of a joint CIA, MI6 and PET operation to infiltrate the highest echelons of al-Qa’ida. But he later fell out with his US handlers after they appeared to renege on the offer of a reward for killing Awlaki.
Among those enraged by the intelligence tactics are officials at Luton’s Islamic Centre in Bury Park who accuse the intelligence services of deploying an “agent provocateur” indoctrinating youths who would without his teaching not been radicalised.
Secretary of the Luton Islamic Centre Road, Farasat Latif, told The Muslim News Storm had started attending prayers at the centre in 2002 “but soon left to his own accord when he realised that worshippers here was very clued up in terms of ideology.”
Latif said he has no problem with “intelligence gathering” but said the 36-year-old father of two had gone beyond that remit and whilst he did not openly ask people to commit a crime he was in fact grooming youths into becoming would be terrorists by “indoctrinating them into the Jihadi ideology, majority of them were unknowledgeable and in the land of the blind the man with one eye is king.”
Latif said many of the youths who first went to see him were lured by his charismatic persona and sporting background. “He spoke of being a former member of a Danish equivalent of the Hells Angel, some went to watch his boxing matches; they would not have thought about jihad before.”
Chair of the Luton Islamic Centre, Qadir Baksh, said he had his suspicions about Storm who was “propped up” by groups such as the Al Muhajiroun. “They made him their scholar. He tried very hard to spread mischief in the community. He would come to us and tell us his views, and we would send him away with his tail between his legs,” said Baksh.
