The Islamist Threat Arrives in Switzerland

“Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah is a preacher of global influence and is one of the senior figures of the fundamentalist Islamic Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia as well as a close associate of Osama bin Laden. He was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia for his extremist ideologies from 1994 until 1999. Even after his imprisonment, he adopts the call to armed struggle against the infidel Western countries in his writings.”– A report filed by the Ministry of Justice in Switzerland, May 2007In another sign of the spread of Islam within Europe, last month, Swiss Muslims announced their plan to open “Europe’s biggest Islamic center” in the capital city of Bern. The center is estimated to cover 84 acres and to cost as much as $66 million to build.Switzerland seems to be an unlikely locus for a battle over jihadist Islamism, but according to reports, its Muslim citizens, who make up about 5% of the total population, increasingly look to radical Middle East clerics for spiritual guidance. The country is also home to a controversial professor, Tariq Ramadan, whose visa to come to America was revoked by the State Department, and reports indicate there has been a rising tension between Muslims and non-Muslims there. In what could be considered pouring fuel on a fire, two weeks ago, the League of Swiss Muslims invited Sheik Salman bin Fahd Al-Odah of Saudi Arabia to participate in their annual conference.Hailing from a wealthy Saudi family, Mr. Odah is a noted Islamic scholar who has a wide following among Islamists throughout the world. He was enraged when American troops were based in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War and has gone on record supporting jihad against American troops in Iraq.His stance on the American presence in Saudi Arabia earned him five years in jail there for speaking out against the government — a sentence condemned in Osama bin Laden’s infamous 1996 fatwa against the West. According to reports, copies of Mr. Odah’s sermons have been found in an abandoned Afghanistan home belonging to Mr. bin Laden.When Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia released the first issue of its online magazine, “The Voice of Jihad,” in 2003, it included a biography of Sheik Yousef Al-Ayyiri, a Saudi Al Qaeda leader who served as Mr. bin Laden’s personal bodyguard in Afghanistan and later in Sudan. Upon Mr. Ayyir’s return to Saudi Arabia, that issue of “The Voice of Jihad” quotes Mr. Al- Odah as telling Mr. Ayyiri, “I am proud to be one of the soldiers of Abu Abdallah,” Mr. bin Laden’s nom de jihad.A few weeks ago, as Mr. Odah was about to leave for Switzerland, Swiss authorities informed him he had been barred from entering Switzerland by a ruling of the Federal Police Department of the Swiss Ministry of Justice. Accusing “extremist Zionist forces” of being behind the ban, Mr. Odah said he is considering a lawsuit and says that American and German lawyers have agreed to take the case.According to a London Arabic daily, Al-Asharq Al-Awsat, Mr. Odah “was subjected to a similar incident in Spain, where Spanish authorities accused him of financing one of the criminals in the Madrid train bombings.” Publications such as El Mundo in Spain and Corriere della Sera in Italy have alleged that Madrid bomber Rabei Osman Ahmed was a follower of Mr. Odah.In the past year, Mr. Odah has made a number of negative headlines in the West. He attacked Pope Benedict’s statements about Islam. The Baltimore Sun reported on January 8 that Mr. Odah was “a regular visitor to Sudan and a strong supporter of the Janjaweed’s campaign against the people of Darfur.”The Baltimore Sun article also accused him of “funding the Islamic Courts Union” in Somalia, a political group that has tried to turn Somalia into a Wahhabist-style state, and reported that Mr. Odah had “called upon Saudis to go to Somalia to aid the jihad” there during a December 27 interview on Al-Jazeera television.It is however a troubling sign that such Muslim leaders have become religious and spiritual guides to mainstream Muslims in the West.Switzerland’s banning Mr. Odah follows decisions in other Western countries to close their borders to influential Muslim religious figures who often espouse anti-Western and pro-jihad sentiment. Notable examples include America’s denial of entry to a leading Egyptian Islamist sheik, Yusef Al-Qaradawi, a spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Canada’s barring the imam of Islam’s holiest mosque in Mecca, Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, for his anti-Semitic and anti-Christian statements and calls for jihad. This practice should continue and be adopted by all Western countries.Mr. Stalinsky is the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The Islamist Threat Arrives in Switzerland

The Islamist Threat Arrives in Switzerland

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