British Muslim leader: Only Muslims are innocent

I am a bit late with this, and you have probably already seen it, but I thought it was worth commenting on anyway. Anjem Choudhury of the Omar Bakri group of jihadists in Britain here appears on the BBC’s Hard Talk (thanks to Hana). He is entirely ready to condemn attacks on innocent civilians, but he notes that because non-Muslims have rejected Islam, none of them are innocent. Therefore attacks like 9/11 and 7/7 are perfectly justified.

Choudhury can and no doubt does easily support his view from the Qur’an, in which Jews and Christians are under Allah’s curse (9:30) and unbelievers are the “vilest of creatures” (98:6). In the face of this kind of thinking, we have seen British Muslim leaders condemn the killing of “innocent civilians.” And in the U.S., we have received the much-publicized fatwa against terrorism issued by the Fiqh Council of North America, which declares: “Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives.”

Why isn’t any law enforcement official asking Muslim leaders (in both the U.S. and Britain) to denounce in clear terms the statement by Anjem Choudhury, that no non-Muslim is innocent? And to follow up that denunciation with nationwide programs in mosques, teaching against the ideology enunciated here by Anjem Choudhury in unambiguous terms?

UPDATE: Daniel Pipes has an illuminating discussion of this concept here.