According to the Finnish tabloid paper Ilta-Sanomat, the man arrested in the Manchester airport last week for his alleged ties to British Al-Qaida, had visited Finland on and off for six years. According to the unidentified suspects mother:
“He was going to visit Finland for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that begins next weekend, where he was to partake in the opening ceremonies, but now he’ll be denied that.”
According to his mother, “he had been in Finland earlier to teach Muslims.”
Apparently all those arrested, (five to date) were Pakistanis, two of them are brothers. According to the Finnish police, they are looking into the connections the two men may have had with a Finnish Islamic organization, but they are not saying which one. Hmmm. Mentioned in the article is the leader of the organization (not named) in which the men had some connection. He denied that “he had any knowledge of them”, which of course could be very well true.
A word of warning to the fence sitters, this could be only the tip of the iceberg as the investigation intensifies. It’s got to lead somewhere, and if Al-Qaida has made inroads into the Finnish Islamic communities, then we’ve got a problem. There is already available proof on hand, that the Finnish Islamic orgs openly support Sheik Ysusf al-Qaradawi. So it just stands to reason that Islamic extremism has found an open and waiting audience in the land of the north. KGS
