Doubts cast on claims of Scots Taliban fighters

A senior Muslim today denounced claims that two young Scots had left Britain to fight alongside the Taliban.

Bashir Maan, a Glasgow city councillor and Scottish representative on the Islamic Council of Great Britain, said he believed the information was spread by the militant Al-Muhajiroun organisation as a propaganda tactic.

In media reports today, one of the men was named as 24-year-old Abdul Aziz, and the other as a Scottish convert to Islam known only as Abullah. Both men are said to be from Glasgow.

It was also reported that the men had almost been killed during an American missile attack.

The reports said the claims were made by Al-Muhajiroun.

Mr Maan said he believed Al-Muhajiroun, which is active in the UK and Pakistan, may have made up the story with ‘‘sinister’’ intentions in a bid to encourage young Muslims to go to fight with the Taliban.

He said: ‘‘This is rumours. They are not saying who they are, where they come from and what’s their address in Scotland.

‘‘We haven’t heard anything in Glasgow. Nobody knows who has left for Pakistan and who has gone to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. I think it’s unlikely. I think it’s rumours.’’

Mr Maan dismissed Al-Muhajiroun as a ‘‘fringe group’’ in the Islamic world whose views were not shared by the majority of Muslims.

Anyone from Scotland who had gone to fight for the Taliban would be breaking Islamic as well as British law, he said.

‘‘Under Islamic law, nobody who is living in a country and who has all the freedom of speech and religion, can go out and fight against that country.

‘‘If they feel inclined to do that, then they have to come out in the open and say they renounce their citizenship and contact with this country and then they can do whatever they like.’’