Police investigate threat to assassinate Blair

By SUE LEEMAN
Associated Press Writer

LONDON – Police are investigating a threat to assassinate Prime Minister Tony Blair attributed to a British-based Islamic group, but the organization's leader said Wednesday the remarks had been misinterpreted.

Abdel-Rahman Saleem, spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun, was quoted in Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based newspaper, as saying that U.S.-British attacks on Afghanistan since the weekend had made Blair a target.

"(Blair) has also become a legitimate target. This means that if any Muslim wanted to kill him or to get rid of him, I would not shed any tears," Saleem was quoted as saying from Lahore, Pakistan ahead of Blair's visit there.

But the group's leader, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, said he had spoken Wednesday to Saleem, "and he made it clear to me that he did not say Blair should be attacked.

"What he did was give the Pakistani perspective on Blair's visit to Pakistan" last week, Mohammed told The Associated Press.

"Here in the West, we live peacefully. It is against the law to make death threats."

The British government has said it is watching Al-Muhajiroun and Scotland Yard said Wednesday it is "investigating alleged comments made by Abdel-Rahman Saleem as reported in some national newspapers."

"We continue to monitor comments made by other individuals and are in close consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service," said an official who spokes on condition of anonymity.

Mohammed, a Syrian expelled from Saudi Arabia, has lived in London since 1986. Saleem, a British citizen, could not be contacted for comment in Pakistan Wednesday.

Members of Al-Muhajiroun, which means "the emigrants" in Arabic, target university campuses in search of recruits and urge the creation of an Islamic state in Britain.

The group denies recruiting men to fight for the Taliban or to train in Afghan terrorist camps set up by Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks in Washington and New York. But they insist that it is every Muslim male's duty "to struggle and fight for a just cause."

APNP-10-10-01 1005CDT