Five British muslims die with Taliban

Five British Muslims have been killed while fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, it was claimed today.

They are believed to have died with other foreign volunteers during fierce battles at the city of Mazar-i-Sharif which fell last Friday.

The extremist Islamic group Al-Muhajiroun, which has a north London headquarters, hailed the five as "martyrs".

Hassan Butt, a spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun in Islamabad, named three of them as Abdul Saleem, 25, from east London, Zulfikar Ahmed, 28, from Leicester and Abu Waheed, 26, from Crawley.

He refused to identify the other two, saying: "Five of our British Muslim volunteers were martyred in Mazar-i-Sharif."

The spokesman added: "We still believe that the Taliban have not been defeated. We will be sending more volunteers, money and weapons to them."

Supporters of the Taliban claim scores of British Muslims have travelled to Pakistan to fight with the Taliban. Last month five British Muslims were reported to have been killed in a US rocket attack on Kabul. One was named as Yasir Khan, 27, from Crawley.

Anjem Chowdary claims to be the UK leader of Al-Muhajiroun, an organisation that is coming under increasingly close scrutiny from the police and security services.

He said: ?To many people it very clearly seems to be a war between the western regimes and Muslims so they travel to the region.

?The fact that you find five Britons in Afghanistan should not be a surprise.

?I think that the British Government are at pains to say no one is going to Afghanistan and that the coalition is winning the war but quite honestly it is a load of rubbish.?

The Foreign Office said: ?We are not in a position to confirm that any British Muslims have been killed or injured.?

Mohammad Siddique, vice-chairman of the East London Mosque, in Whitechapel, said today: ?Whoever goes over to fight is doing it with their own ideas in mind. It is nothing to do with Islam.

?Whoever is recruiting these people is completely wrong. I do not know how they got this idea. They are just a few extremist people.

?As far as we know it is nothing to do with our mosque. It is a peaceful mosque and the whole Muslim community has condemned what happened on 11 September.?

Dr Zaki Badawi, chairman of the Imams and Mosques Council in England, has described the actions of those who go to fight for the Taliban as ?illegitimate and treacherous?.

He added: ?They cannot have the privileges of living in a country without accepting the responsibilities.?

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