English street organiser Tommy Robinson has chosen to reveal the Islamic State publication calling for his assassination that saw him go into hiding and flee the United Kingdom earlier this year.
Tommy Robinson, the anti-grooming gang activist and organiser who founded the now long-defunct English Defence League (EDL), who has lately turned to what is called citizen journalism, has made public two pages from one of the handful of glossy magazines published in the fundamentalist Islamic world dedicated to inspiring terrorism.
These magazines have long been an area of concern for European counter-terror professionals, with earlier incarnations of Islamic State and Al-Qaeda magazines including Dabiq and Inspire helping spread the idea of the combined knife-car attack to would-be lone wolf Islamists. Now one of them is calling on followers to execute “the one who disrespects the prophet”, Tommy Robinson.
Mr Robinson left the United Kingdom in February, stating at the time that he’d been contacted by British police who advised him they were in receipt of counter-terrorism intelligence that his life was in danger. At that time, Robinson was said to have been advised by police that this threat came from an Islamic State magazine, that he couldn’t see it because it is a “proscribed” publication, and that he couldn’t take any proactive steps for self-defence.
While there are narrow allowances for self-defence in British law, to all intents and purposes, it is essentially illegal. Carrying any item or weapon for self-defence is always illegal in the UK, including basic items like pepper spray.
Although the Islamic State of Pakistan magazine in question was named as Yalgaar [‘Attack’] at the time, this is the first time Robinson has gone public with the specific nature of the threat. In a shocking passage of text next to an image of Robinson’s face cut with screenshots of Tweets by the activist calling Mohammed a “nonce”, the magazine declares:
The Quran, the Prophetic tradition, the unanimous consensus of the Prophet’s Companions, the generation that followed them, and the leading scholars of Islam all establish that: Whoever reviles or insults the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has committed disbelief, and such a person is to be executed unconditionally, whether they claim to be Muslim or are a non-Muslim, and whether they later repent or do not repent.
The magazine also, it was stated, contained a page about the importance of the “lone wolf”, one of the key challenges to Western intelligence agencies, who at times appear to struggle to intercept self-radicalising terrorists who strike without a great deal of signals traffic for spies to detect. The magazine highlighted the characteristics it found praiseworthy in these lone wolves, stating that believers “make news” and show their anger to the world.
Such terrorist killers put their trust in Allah, are leaders, and men of action, it said. Disturbingly, the article was accompanied by an image of an assault rifle with messages scrawled on it, including “today we invade you in your own home” and the names of historic battles like Ain Jalut in 1260AD, Yarmuk in 636AD, and Hattin in 1187AD, all decisive Muslim army victories.
Since leaving the UK on that police advice in February, Robinson has spent time in the United States, particularly in Washington, where he visited the State Department and addressed members of Congress. He has called a protest in London for mid-May, the latest in his series of Unite the Kingdom rallies.
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