The Tottenham Ayatollah and The Hook-Handed Cleric: An Examination of All Their Jihadi Children

Omar Bakri Mohammed (the Tottenham Ayatollah) and Abu Hamza al-Masri (the hook-handed cleric) are two of the more infamous figures to emerge from what critics called “Londonistan.” However, they should be remembered not only for their rhetoric and appearance, but also for the fact that their respective organizations, Bakri's Al Muhajiroun, and Hamza's Supporters of Shariah based at the Finsbury Park Mosque, have been the connective thread through most Islamist terrorist plots that have emanated from the United Kingdom. This article maps out the network of terrorist plots in the United Kingdom and abroad that appears to have emanated from the networks around these two men with a view to understanding better how the connections remained unclear for so long and how understanding of the networks evolved over time.