Radical Michigan imam urges Muslims to embrace Jihad

An extremist Michigan cleric whose hate-filled sermons were said to have inspired the London Bridge terrorist attack has called on American Muslims to wage Jihad against the “infidel West” — and blamed the US led by “senile Pharaoh” Biden for what he called a “genocide in Palestine.”

Ahmad Musa Jibril, 51, a radical Islamist preacher from Dearborn, circulated videos on social media in late November arguing that Muslims in the US and elsewhere in the West should turn away from what he described as a watered down “American-Zionist Islam” that ignores the idea of Jihad, otherwise known as the “holy war.”

“Yes, there is holy war in Islam, it is Jihad,” Jibril maintained. “This may be a surprise to many who grew up in the West, especially those who were born or grew up post 9/11, because of the growing number of hypocrites, who are spreading the American-Zionist Islam, and it has nothing to do with Islam, that version of Islam is and Islam that suits the enemies.”

Jibril shared one of his fiery rants on Nov. 25 on X, where it caught the attention of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington DC-based watchdog.

Alberto Fernandez, vice president of the Institute, told Fox News Digital that the spread of “radicalizing” content on social media, where it could be viewed by impressionable young people, is a serious cause for concern.

“If that’s the stuff that they’re saying openly, what are they saying that is not open?” Fernandez said, referring to radical ideologues like Jibril.

In another video shared on a Telegram channel associated with Jibril, the hardliner Palestinian-American preacher addressed the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, saying that it should be viewed as a “wake up call” for young Muslims in the US to start “normalizing” Jihad.

“Jihad must be a common, normal term on your tongues, on your social media, and in the mosques and elsewhere,” Jibril said.

He also suggested that Muslims mothers should “nurse their infants with the love of Jihad and the ambition to become a mujahid and a martyr.”

“If you can’t raise your child telling him you want him to be mujahid and martyr, then you are the root of the problem,” he proclaimed.

Jibril did not mince words when discussing President Biden, whom he labeled a “terrorist,” and his administration’s policy toward Israel.

“You have seen that senile Pharaoh of our time, he has lost his mind of everything, except his loyalty and support for Jewish occupiers,” the cleric seethed, adding that the US “is more to blame for the genocide in Palestine that the occupying Jews.”

Jibril claimed that with the war raging in the Middle East following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, now is the time for young people to understand that “the infidel West, particularly the US, are the enemies of Muslims.”

Fernandez warned that the war has been acting as an “accelerant” for spreading radical ideas about Islam.

“It accelerates something which is already happening, which is a kind of ideological war which is occurring. So, it drives interest, and it drives people becoming more extreme,” Fernandez said. “They’ll use whatever is happening to promote their message.”

It was previously reported that security experts had named Jibril as one of the most influential online recruiters for ISIS at the start of the terrorist group’s ascent nearly a decade ago, according to Newsweek.

Jibril, who preaches an ultra-conservative Salafist version of Islam, had used his platform to call on young people to travel to Syria and join the ranks of ISIS.

One of the perpetrators of the deadly London Bridge attack in June 2017 was said to have listened to Jibril’s sermons, before he and his two accomplices mowed down pedestrians and then went on a stabbing spree in the heart of the British capital.

The terrorist attack, which left eight people dead and dozens injured, was later claimed by ISIS.

In 2004, Jibril was convicted of 42 criminal counts, including conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and possession of firearms and ammunition. He was sentenced to more than six years in a high-security federal prison, from which he was released in 2012.