While Mary is having a hiatus, my PC is suffering a hernia.

Hence posting will be haphazard and untidy via the public library. 

Hat Tip Alan, from the Telegraph.

In the two weeks since the Islamic Forum of Europe were exposed by The Sunday Telegraph and Channel 4’s Dispatches as hardline fundamentalists secretly infiltrating the political system, they have been furiously protesting their “proven track record of community cohesion”. Last week, however, the organisation showed its true face.

“We’ve tracked you down,” said the IFE’s community affairs co-ordinator, Azad Ali, in a webcast targeting the Channel 4 reporter “Atif”, who went undercover at the IFE’s headquarters, the East London Mosque, filming the group’s true views – and its boasts that it controlled the local Tower Hamlets council. “Yes, Atif, we’ve got a picture of you and a lot more than you thought we had. We’ve tracked you down to different places. And if people are gonna turn what I’ve just said into a threat, that’s their fault, innit?”

Mr Ali’s words sit strangely with his role as an official advisor to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, and to the police, but perhaps his annoyance is understandable. The undercover reporters filmed him saying: “Democracy, if it means not implementing the sharia, no one’s going to agree with that.”

And yesterday it looked as if pressure was mounting on the second-most important officer at Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Ali – a man with a controversial employment history and close links to the IFE. Mr Ali, the assistant chief executive, has responsibility for council grants. Under him, increasing sums of council money have been channelled to IFE-controlled organisations.

Tower Hamlets’ chief executive, Kevan Collins, confirmed that a complaint had been received about Mr Ali from another government agency called the National College for Leadership of Schools.

Council sources said the allegation was that Mr Ali had been moonlighting, in council time, with the college. “Any allegations of that nature will be fully investigated,” Mr Collins said. “Every member of staff is under a contractual obligation to work full-time for the council unless explicitly stated otherwise.” A formal investigation into Mr Ali is likely to be launched tomorrow.

Approached yesterday, Mr Ali did not deny the allegation, saying only: “I cannot make a comment on that because I need to check out exactly what the college have said.”

Badrul Islam, chief executive of a local voluntary organisation, the Ethnic Minority Enterprise Project, and a leading Muslim campaigner against the Islamists.  . . who featured in The Sunday Telegraph reports and the Channel 4 film, said the story had created a “huge frenzy” in the community and he had been congratulated by dozens of people for taking part. “But,” he added, “they all said one other thing, 'Take care of yourself’, or 'Are you going to be all right?’ ”

So far, apart from a couple of anonymous telephone threats, nothing has happened. But the IFE’s opponents in Tower Hamlets know that the battle is far from over.

The IFE has taken considerable control over this Bangladeshi area, even though it is the descendant of a party, Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed and fought against the very creation of Bangladesh. War crimes were allegedly committed by some JI members during the country’s 1971 war of independence. Some of those people fled to London – and played important roles in the foundation of the IFE.

But perhaps the organisation’s most serious challenge comes from Bangladesh. Jamaat-e-Islami has never been as powerful there as it is in east London, and Bangladesh’s government is organising to have several JI members indicted for their alleged war crimes during the 1971 liberation struggle. Among them is likely to be a man who plays a leading role in the East London Mosque.

The fundamentalists remain deeply embedded in east London. But in the “Islamic Republic” of Tower Hamlets, the backlash has started.