In the publicity for the 'Rally for Revival' organised by the radical Islamic group Al-Muhajiroun in 1996, the group issued a press release referring to London as 'the capital' of international Islamic organisations.
Many Islamic groups from overseas have indeed established themselves (and especially their leaders) in the UK, claiming political asylum.
The leader of the Saudi dissident group, the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights, Dr. Muhammad al-Masa'ari, is the most celebrated example of this tendency, and in 1996 he successfully fought off an attempt by the British government to deport him to Dominica. Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of the Tunisian Islamists An-Nahdah, is resident in the UK, as is the leader of the Bahraini Islamists, many Algerian leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Egyptian Islamists, the leader of the militant Sunni Pakistani group Sipah-i-Sahabah, Kashmiri dissidents and many others. The leader of Al-Muhajiroun, Omar Bakri Muhammad, is an asylum-seeker from Syria and currently applying for UK citizenship, despite the fact that on the 1997 TV programme, The Tottenham Ayatollah, he indicated a reservation about obeying British law, even with driving licences.
