Terror accused told of 'jihad obligation' by Somali sheikh

A SOMALI sheikh told two men accused of preparing for a terror attack on a Sydney army base that fighting to advance the cause of Islam was an obligation for all able Muslim men, a court has heard.

In a lecture delivered in Somali and Arabic, the man identified as Sheikh Hayakallah said that Islam's loss of territories such as Spain and Jerusalem had imposed the duty of jihad on generations of Muslims.

According to a translation read yesterday to a Supreme Court jury, the sheikh said under religious law jihad was usually understood as fighting against non-believers. He said the Islamic religion was founded on the literacy of religious scholars and the blood of martyrs.

Advertisement: Story continues below ''Jihad is obligatory to any Muslim who reached the age of maturity, who is sane, who is male and who is capable of fighting,'' said Sheikh Hayakallah.

The court heard that the lecture was located as audio files on one of two hard drives found in a computer seized from the Preston home of Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed.

Ahmed, 26, Saney Edow Aweys, 27, of North Carlton, Yacqub Khayre, 23, of Meadow Heights, Wissam Fattal, 34, of Melbourne, and Nayef El Sayed, 26, of Glenroy, have pleaded not guilty to preparing or planning to attack Holsworthy Army Barracks.

The court has heard that, frustrated in their intention to travel overseas to engage in jihad, the group sought a fatwa, or religious ruling, on the appropriateness of conducting operations against Australian military institutions.

The translation read yesterday indicated Ahmed and Aweys were present for Sheikh Hayakallah's address. In it, Sheikh Hayakallah said that once Islamic land was transgressed by non-Muslims, jihad became as much a duty for Muslim men as observance of the holy month of Ramadan and daily prayers.

''When the country known as Spain fell into the hands of the infidels it was that day the jihad was a collective obligation to us. When [Jerusalem] fell into the hands of the infidels, in the '60s, it was that day that the jihad was a collective obligation on us,'' he said.

''It is then not only us or our parents but up to our grandfathers the jihad was an individual obligation.''

The trial is continuing.

Source: The Age