Amanpour: Britain's radical Muslims shock me

Christiane Amanpour:

The UK was rocked by the attacks of July 7, 2005 and the attempted attacks that failed two weeks later. Since then, Britons have many questions about the role of the Muslim community here.

In our investigation, we found shocking evidence of the bigotry, intolerance and hatred preached by some Muslim fundamentalists in the UK. We met men like Anjem Choudary of the now-banned Al-Mahajiroon extremist group, who denounces democracy and predicts Britain will be ruled by Sharia, Islamic law.

He publicly distances himself from suicide bombings here in the UK, mindful of Britain's tough new anti-terrorism laws, yet we filmed him openly condoning violent Jihad abroad.

"I happen to be in an ideological and political war," Choudary said. "My brothers in al Qaeda and other Mujahedeen are involved in a military campaign."

And this week, a report in the London Sunday Times says Choudary has been using a false name on a password-protected Web site to incite Muslims to go to Somalia to wage holy war.

Some mosques in Britain, while publicly agreeing to cross-cultural tolerance, in fact sometimes host preachers from both Britain and abroad who rail with hatred against "kafirs" (infidels), against homosexuals, against democracy and even against women.

This hate-speech and the attempt by extremists to recruit young disaffected Muslims on London's deprived streets and even on university campuses is beginning to motivate the "other voices of Islam" to try to seize back their religion, which they say has been hijacked.

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