The above headline – “Terror Target Sugar” – provided a front page splash for the Sun in January. The story explained that Muslims were plotting on an on-line forum to attack British Jews over Israel’s actions in Gaza; the paper’s evidence was postings made by a certain “Abu Islam” and brought to the attention of the newspaper by Glen Jenvey, an “anti-terrorist” expert who had previously appeared on BBC Newsnight discussing extremist Muslims and as a pundit for the American Obsession documentary. However, Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads found evidence strongly suggestive that Jenvey himself was Abu Islam, and that he had made the postings which he then “exposed” for the Sun. The story was removed from the internet, and Sugar’s lawyers announced plans to sue.
Since then, a lot has happened – and the most unexpected development has been Jenvey’s own conversion to radical Islam. Jenvey has now confessed his authorship of the “Abu Islam” posts in a message to a moderator at Ummah.com, the forum where this all began. I have had some private correspondence with Jenvey myself, and I can confirm the authenticity of this message:
Brother i’m sorry for the Allan Sugar story plant. I’m retired now from spying on Muslims. I saw a chance to install fear back in Jews who were killing Muslims.I was wrong to use you and your site.If you need any thing to help you in any way in the name of Allah just ask.
But yes the Sun did not know who posted it.I say sorry to you from my heart. if you want show the police and get me arrested. but with the first ramadaam coming i want to clear my past sin’s before i start my fasting and pray.
I would write this on your forum but im blocked out. may Allah reward you for your good work you do.Ameen
Omar Hamza Jenvey
aka
Glen Jenvey
This is extraordinary: Jenvey admits to being “Abu Islam”, and he tells us that his deliberate purpose was to cause Alan Sugar and other Jews to fear fear and distress. And that he was able to get the Sun to oblige with a front page story that spread rapidly across the media.
However, it is also rather weird: Jenvey announced his intention to convert to Islam only in June. This followed a Daily Mail article which mentioned him in passing in a story about football hooligans in Luton (Jenvey was an associate of Paul Ray, the Luton-based anti-Muslim blogger known as “Lionheart”. Ray dismissed the claim that Jenvey was Abu Islam as “propaganda!“, and after the Sun article was published Ray appeared on No Compromise, a right-wing American internet radio programme, to explain that Jenvey was now in hiding from Muslim extremists who had vowed to behead him). Jenvey found the Mail article very offensive, and this was the apparent catalyst for his conversion. He was not a Muslim when he wrote the “Abu Islam” posts – at the time, causing Jews to feal fear was just a means to an end, the end of course being to generate general public fear and disgust against Muslims for targeting Jews.
But there are also some bigger questions: how can the media be manipulated so easily in this way? The reality and dangers of Islamic fundamentalism of course must not be underestimated, but now we have to ask: what other information about radical Islam which has come through the media is of dubious provenance? We know there was a channel by which material “discovered” by Jenvey made its way to the desk of Patrick Mercer MP, the former Conservative Shadow Minister for Homeland Security. Mercer, and those who generated this channel, are now in rather embarrassing situation, it seems to me. Are court cases involving extremists now really in jeopardy, as Jenvey claims is the case as regards Abu Hamza?
And what about the credibility (as if it ever had any) of Obsession, which was distributed as a free DVD to 28 million American homes in 2008, and which featured Jenvey along with the likes of Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz, and Brigitte Gabriel?
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Stranger and stranger…. How much further down the rabbit hole will this go?
This may not be “politically correct,” but here goes… From 9/11 to Ft. Hood, why is anyone even surprised about these atrocities anymore? This is merely the latest chapter in the thousand year old story known as The Crusades, and it’s never going to end. Indeed, the worst is yet to come. The United States of America was created as a tolerant country, a Republic of Democracy. Thanksgiving…baseball…Mom…apple pie, shall I go on? Muslims share absolutely none of these values. Quite the contrary, this “religion of peace” instructs their followers to “kill the infidels.” The “prophet” Muhammad was a pedophile, and, to this day, beheadings are their “civilized” way of dealing with anyone who opposes their fascist beliefs, beliefs which are forbidden from being challenged. Just wait until the next “fatwa”…
It wont make any difference. The anti-Islamics do not care when they are wrong. They wont stop and think about what they are doing or saying even if proven wrong, theyll move onto another point they will try to force home. They ahve no shame or remorse.
[…] Notes on Religion has the latest on the Glen Jenvey affair (for background start here, also see here, here and here and here… Since then, a lot has […]
You can hear the champagne corks popping on the anti Islamist side now that Jenvey is no longer their liability any more. Just goes to show Al Muhajiroun will really accept anyone.
But there are also some bigger questions: how can the media be manipulated so easily in this way?
Who says it is being manipulated? It’s the MSM that is doing the manipulating, whether it’s pushing lies about Saddams’ WMD’s and non-existtent links to ‘al CIA-du’ or telling us Iran is making a nuke which they want to use to ‘wipe Israel off the map.’
The only ones benefiting from endless wars in the ME and south Asia are the Pentagon, Wall Street and Israel.
Those are the ones doing the manipulating and using the MSM to push fear, hatred and ignorance so Americans will rally behind more and more wars for Empire and Israel.
Aided and abetted by numerous Zionist think tanks, like AEI, Brookings and JINSA.
As if that’s not enough fear mongering, the ADL is teaching hatred of Muslims to our police.
What will it take to satisfy Israel and her rabid band of Zionist supporters?
Fake anti-Islamic stories like the ‘Sugar threat’ get debunked all the time.
But they never get the same attention as the lie.
Most people will still believe that Sugars life was(still) under threat from Phantom Muslims.
Well done Bloggerheads, yourself et al.
[…] expert’ who lied about Muslims drawing up a hit list of prominent Jews, has now admitted what the rest of us long suspected: that he faked the offending comments himself (in a posting on […]
Greg: so is it the cunning Zionists who are behind this manipulation of the media? Can you tell me the difference between what you are saying and what was said about Jews controlling the media in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Let’s not forget, folks, that The Sun (and its Sunday counterpart, the rather-ironically-named News of the World), are owned by the same Keith Rupert Murdoch who has his fingers in Fox News Channel (or, as I call it on my blog, “Fox Prolefeed”), Fox Business News (a/k/a “Fox Prolefeed II”) and the Faux network.
[…] expert’ who lied about Muslims drawing up a hit list of prominent Jews, has now admitted what the rest of us long suspected: that he faked the offending comments himself (in a posting on […]
Richard-ji, you should come to Ummah forums and have a look at the threads starring Omar Jenvey and a cast of thousands.
:)
x
PS Ramadan Mubarak
Charlotte Wadia
al-Hur al-Ayn
Hmm.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/07/434631.html
Stop talking to yourself, keep to one alias, and get to the point.
What d’you mean one alias? I’m not Shooter.
Why did you delete her post about Philip Dickens or whatever his name is?
Richard,
Since you’re obviously still reading this thread, can you please tell me what your comments moderation policy (if any) is, and why you have let Greg’s blatantly antisemitic comment go unchallenged?
I thought you handled it well enough. I don’t usually delete comments unless they’re either gratuitously abusive, potentially libellous, or spamming. If they are objectionable I will sometimes give a riposte, although in this case I let it slide (although perhaps I shouldn’t have). If they are incendiary, I reveal the IP details etc, as I did in this case.
In case of doubt, I tend to agree with Walter Russell Mead’s analysis of the “Israel lobby” question.
Thanks for that.
Cairene, I’ll say it again with less swearing (sorry Richard)-
Philip Dickens is unecessarily rude, and someone had to tell him… if he wants to freak out about it on uk indiemedia that’s his lookout
ramadan kareem
xx
Right. So what’s an ‘Islamic girl group’ doing, lurking around the edges of Casuals United?
Just curious, like.
[…] Posted on September 13, 2009 by Richard Bartholomew Following Jenvey’s confession last month, BBC Radio 5 Live’s Donal MacIntyre programme has interviewed Glen Jenvey about how […]
[…] his confession last month, BBC Radio 5 Live’s Donal MacIntyre programme tonight interviewed Glen Jenvey about how he […]
[…] The bizarre aspect is that Glen Jenvey has apparently confessed due to his own conversion to radical Islam. […]
[…] The bizarre aspect is that Glen Jenvey has apparently confessed as a result conversion to radical Islam. […]
[…] The bizarre aspect is that Glen Jenvey has apparently confessed as a result conversion to radical Islam. […]
[…] given to Mr Jenvey’s confession on BBC Radio last week“. The confession was actually in August; Mercer had announced misgivings about Jenvey in March; and the evidence that the story had […]
[…] Ireland @Bloggerheads exposed Glen Jenvey as having written terror threats under the name ‘Abu Islam‘ then reporting these same threats to create front page news gleefully propagated by […]
[…] “Spiritual Warfare” RhetoricTories, Thugs & Cheats « Ten Percent on Glen Jenvey Confesses that He Wrote Fake Islamist Postings which Formed the Basis for Sun Front Page…June on “Islam on Capitol Hill” Event Sparks Christian Right “Spiritual […]
[…] wrote a blog entry about the Cheerleaders back in February, as part of an investigation into Glen Jenvey and the “VIGIL Network“; this was after I had received the following comment (on 25 […]
[…] was based. A little over 9 months later, following a Press Complaints Commission investigation and a full confession by Jenvey, who has converted to Islam and taken the name Omar Hamza Jenvey, The Sun finally apologised to […]
Well I think Priya tied that one up quite well in that thread above. If you lot want the full beans, just ask. What DOES annoy us is all the behind-keyboard speculating, when you could come out and talk to us anytime.
x
What annoys me is scum who who post a person’s family address on-line as form of intimidation.
[…] the extremists around Anjem Choudhary and making crude anti-Jewish statements. During this period, he explained that his postings to Ummah had indeed been made in order to make Jews feel afraid. After three […]
[…] British Jews: the evidence was postings on a Muslim website which turned out to have been made by a non-Muslim who then passed the story on to a news agency. The tale was debunked and withdrawn (and the […]
[…] (I also received a message from a pseudo-Ray around the same time; whether this was the same person or someone else is unknown). This suggests that at least one outsider has made postings to the site with a view to manipulating the discussion among readers – again, something which has been seen before. […]
[…] generated a front-page splash for the Sun by posting a fake message to a Muslim website in order to concoct a terrorism scare. Tim discovered the deception, and Mercer disassociated himself from Jenvey once the evidence of […]
[…] Dairy: Claims to Have “Personal Alarm” « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion on Glen Jenvey Confesses that He Wrote Fake Islamist Postings which Formed the Basis for Sun Front Page…Daniel Hoffmann-Gill on Catherine Acholonu: Igbo Traditions Reveal Ancient […]
[…] I’ve written about the “Cheerleaders” a number of times over the past 18 months or so: they are a group of cyber-vigilantes who purport to research and oppose Islamic extremists, although they are actually more interested in using fake on-line identities and sock-puppets to harass people. Most notably, last year they used Twitter to publicise thr blogger Tim Ireland’s home address and to send him a series of threatening messages – such as “machete to your throat” – in the stated hope that he would be forced to “go back to Australia”. This was prompted by Tim’s blog posts on how a man named Dominic Wightman had tried to manipulate him (and me) into writing blog posts attacking another man against whom Wightman has a grudge. However, Charlie Flowers, who heads the “Cheerleaders”, claims that this was simply coincidental, and that the attacks on Tim were undertaken because of Tim’s opposition to Nadine Dorries MP (see here). Wightman in turn has also disavowed any association, although Flowers did work with Wightman’s defunct “VIGIL Network”, along with Glen Jenvey. […]
[…] Sun in January last year. The story had been concocted from evidence planted on an Islamic forum by Glen Jenvey, who took revenge for the exposure by making anonymous postings accusing Tim of being a wanted […]
[…] Tim Ireland uncovered that the source for a front page Sun story about a muslim hit-list was the very same chap who posted the idea on a muslim forum, whilst pretending to be a muslim, Tim […]
[…] the Taliban are using HIV-bombs. Some material was previously passed to Mercer from Glen Jenvey, who was discovered by Tim in early 2009 to have concocted evidence of a terrorist conspiracy by leaving bogus messages […]
[…] his or her own ends. This is a practice I’ve written about a couple of times previously (here and here); of course, it in no way mitigates or excuses the behaviour of the extremists, but […]
[…] antics are about thrill-seeking rather than anything that can be called political activism. The “Terror Target Sugar” fiasco should have taught him that these things tend to go horribly wrong, and are utterly […]
Whatever the way you look at Islamic beliefs there is a need to discuss it with other people.
[…] Those of us who can think back three years will recall the last time that the Sun uncovered a supposed terror plot by having an investigator poke around web forums – alas, it turned out that things were not what they seemed. […]
[…] while the evidence of a plot against Sugar was discovered by Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads to have been planted by Glen Jenvey, who was the person who claimed to have discovered […]
[…] evidence of a plot against Sugar was discovered by Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads to have been planted by Glen Jenvey, who was the person who claimed to have discovered […]
[…] showed that “abuislam” was in fact Jenvey. After a summer of erratic behaviour, Jenvey eventually confessed to what he had done and apologised. The Sun paid Sugar £25,000 damages and £125,623 in legal […]
[…] The only reasonable conclusion from this is that Nakoula is Bacile. And it seems that Nakoula – who has a fraud conviction – is playing some sort of game: the “Sam Bacile” persona described himself to journalists as being an “Israeli Jew”, and he claimed that “100 Jewish donors” had contributed to the short film’s production. Presumably the motive is that this will incite acts of anti-Semitism, thus exposing “true” Muslim attitudes (aspects of a vigilante syndrome I’ve seen before). […]
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YOU STILL SPAMMING MY NAME? ON GOOGLE HAVE YOU NOT GOT SOMETHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE…
Have you ever seen the full list of names used for research in sun story as the hit list has never been published with 600 names on it. Interesting how gaza deaths are not important in the west. Maybe palrstinians are non important to western media and public
As you are all right there are no threats in the west at all. I’m made all the story’s up. The list of threats by radicals I made and we’re never published are all being reported on as they happen. 578 to go that the media British bloggers and police say are not targets! Really enjoying my retirement..
http://www.glenjenvey.com