Jihad call at Manchester bomber’s local mosque
THE Manchester Arena suicide bomber bought a ticket for the Ariana Grande concert just days after an imam at his local mosque called for jihad attacks, it was claimed last night.
Mustafa Graf was recorded urging it was ‘time to act’ and praying for ‘victory’ in audio obtained by the BBC.
Mr Graf, 47, reportedly made the comments during Friday prayers at Didsbury Mosque in Manchester on December 16, 2016.
Five months later, Salman Abedi, 22, detonated his shrapnel-filled bomb in the arena’s foyer after the American singer’s concert, killing 22 people and injuring hundreds.
While it is not known if Abedi was present during Graf’s sermon, he is known to have worshipped there, and two Islamic scholars said the inflammatory rhetoric ‘may well have contributed to his resolve’ to launch his murderous attack.
The disturbing claim gives a worrying new insight into the radicalisa-
‘Punish civilians in Britain’
tion of British-born Abedi. Greater Manchester Police said it had been handed the recording and ‘will now review it to establish if any criminal offences have been committed’.
In the sermon – which came during the Russian-backed Syrian regime’s bombing of Aleppo – Mr Graf says: ‘We ask Allah to grant them mujahideen – our brothers and sisters right now in Aleppo and Syria – to grant them victory.’ Islamic scholars Usama Hasan and Shaykh Rehan told the BBC his use of mujahideen referred to ‘military jihad’.
Mr Graf then adds ‘the whole world, including Europe, America... the socalled civilised world’ is doing nothing over the Syria bombing, and that they ‘ helped Iranian, Russian and others to kill Muslims over there’.
After listening to the sermon, Islamic scholar Mr Rehan told the BBC the imam was ‘psychologically and practically brainwashing young people into either travelling or to do something to take action’.
Usama Hasan, head of Islamic studies at the anti-extremism group Quilliam, said: ‘If Abedi was in this congregation, I fear this sermon may well have contributed to his resolve to punish civilians in Britain for somehow being complicit in the murder of Muslims in Syria.’
One survivor of the Manchester bombing last night branded the sermon ‘wrong’ and ‘evil’.
Mr Graf, who is originally from Libya, has denied the scholars’ claims, saying his sermon did not call for armed jihad and he has never preached radical Islam. He was unavailable for comment last night.
The BBC said it had been told that Abedi bought a ticket for the Ariana Grande concert ten days after the sermon – however, it has not previously been suggested that the killer had a ticket as he walked in to the foyer as it finished, targeting fans and relatives leaving the event.
Didsbury Mosque said Mr Graf’s use of the words ‘ jihad’ and ‘ mujahideen’ had been misinterpreted.