In a series of recordings sent to his most dedicated followers, the hook-handed cleric encourages bombers to become martyrs "on your own doorstep".
The tapes were obtained by investigative officer Neil Doyle and form the basis of his book Terror Tracker. They are revealed on the day of Hamza's latest court appeal against a bid to throw him out of the country.
Home Secretary David Blunkett considers the north London cleric to be a serious threat to national security. He wants his British citizenship to be revoked.
But police have never had enough evidence to support Hamza's deportation. His public speeches, delivered every Friday outside Finsbury Park mosque, are worded carefully to avoid committing a criminal offence by calling for direct terrorist acts.
The tapes, however, which are sent to people who have attended meetings or contacted Hamza via the internet, are uncensored.
Recorded between 2000 and 2002, they use a number of Islamic phrases such as shaheed (meaning martyr) and jihad (holy war).
One message says: "Our immediate duty now is to correct our own homeland. You don't have to travel thousands and thousands of miles to become a shaheed - you can be shaheed right on your own doorstep. This is the best jihad."
Hamza calls for all Israelis over the age of 15 to be killed and accuses President George Bush and Tony Blair of killing millions of children. He mocks the September 11 attacks against America and says that Islam must strive for world domination. He also boasts that he does not have papers to be in Britain, and says that followers should forge passports.
The latest round in Hamza's bid to stay in Britain was getting under way today at a hearing of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission. It was beginning with legal arguments before a full hearing, which is expected to last three weeks.
Labour MP Andrew Dismore, who has campaigned for Hamza to be deported, said: "These tapes reveal the truth and confirm what a lot of us have been saying for some time. They show that he is a racist, anti-semitic and a supporter of terrorism. I hope the judges in his latest case come up with the right response to this appeal."
The Egyptian-born cleric came to Britain as a student and obtained UK citizenship when he married a British woman he has since divorced. He was a resident preacher at Finsbury Park mosque until it was shut down after a police raid in January last year.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4677303.stm
| Suicide bombing: Desperate tactic | ||||||
Police in the UK are increasingly leaning towards the idea that at least three men behind the country's worst bomb attacks on 7 July 2005 also took their own lives when they killed and maimed scores of commuters. Almost a week later in the Middle East, after an uneasy truce, the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad sent an 18-year-old on a suicide mission in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya. In Iraq, more than 1,200 people have died since May - mostly as a direct result of suicide attacks. The 21st Century appears to have no shortage of men and women who are willing to kill themselves for a cause. Most are young - late teens to early 20s - and gripped by the belief that "martyrdom" will bring an after-life of divine rewards. This is a deadly breed of militant which the defences of the mightiest appear almost too flimsy to resist - as the whole world was able to observe on 11 September 2001 in the US.
Old tactic The use of the suicide bomber is not new - their increased intensity is.
World history is littered with instances of glorification of human sacrifice in the service of a greater principle - even though most cultures are horrified at someone keen to kill himself or herself in order to kill others. From the Spartans to the Romans and until the Middle Ages people died in assassination attacks.
The practice was re-invented when Japanese kamikaze pilots flew their planes into US ships towards the end of World War II, experienced a lull for a few decades to re-emerge in Lebanon in the 1980s with the Hezbollah groups fighting the Israeli army. It went on to be adopted by Palestinian militants in the Occupied Territories in the late 1980s and, in a sense, came of age with the start of the Palestinian intifada in 2000. In between, it was used by fundamentalist Kurds against Turkish targets, Chechens against Russians - but flourished when applied by Tamil Tiger rebels fighting against Sri Lankan forces. The Tamil Tigers, in fact, are believed to be responsible for one of the greatest waves of suicide bombings in world history. Among their victims was former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - killed in 1991 by a woman bomber. Asymmetric warfare Ever since 11 September 2001, military and political analysts have mooted the concept of "asymmetric warfare" to explain the rise of suicide bombing. In classical terms, it means that rebel insurgents unable to fight a conventional war have to resort to guerrilla tactics against powerful states. These methods range from suicide bombings to weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and cyber warfare. In sum, the current spate of suicide bombings is an expression of desperation by groups unable to reach their political and military objectives through conventional means, analysts say.
To illustrate, they point to the election of the right-wing Likud Party of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in response to the Palestinian bombs. But, as the assassinated leader of Hamas once argued, the Palestinian militants would continue using suicide bombers. "Once we have warplanes and missiles, then we can think of changing our means of legitimate self-defence," Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was quoted as saying in the book Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror. Martyrdom hopes In March 2004, 15-year-old Hussam Abdo took up his own small place in the imagery of the Middle East conflict. He was arrested by Israeli troops before detonating his charge. A tiny figure inside an Israeli jail, he told the BBC's James Reynolds why he had decided to become a suicide bomber.
"The reason was because my friend was killed," he said. "The second reason I did it is because I didn't want to go to school." Hussam Abdo went on to deny it was suicide - "it's martyrdom", he said. "I would become a martyr and go to my God. It's better than being a singer or a footballer. It's better than everything." In a similar vein, a Chechen woman told the BBC in 2003 how she had parted company with her 18-month-old daughter to become a "black widow" - one of those whose husbands had been killed in the war with Russia and who had decided to become suicide bombers. Islam expressly prohibits suicide bombing - but there is a long tradition of venerating the martyr who dies fighting for God's cause. Video-taped testimonies of Palestinian bombers are replete with references to a blissful paradise awaiting them. But this is not the only motivation, researchers say. The bombers expect to be remembered as heroic figures, says Christoph Reuter in his book My Life is a Weapon: A Modern History of Suicide Bombing. But they usually have no say in how they will die - their superiors decide on the mission, sometimes giving the bombers only a few minutes' notice. | ||||||
Palestinians have widely used the suicide bomber during the intifada
Once we have warplanes and missiles, then we can think of changing our means of legitimate self-defence 
Bombers targets symbols of power