UK: Police urged to investigate London scouts over ‘grossly antisemitic’ video

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Government’s former extremism tsar calls for a ‘major investigation’ into exploitation of charity sector by foreign states

Members of the Islamic Message Scout Association
Police are being urged to investigate a British scout group over fears of extremism radicalising children after some of its members appeared in a “sickening” antisemitic video, the JC can reveal.


The troop – which is not part of The Scout Association – is based at a community centre run by a charity in West London.


The boys are seen in a video on Facebook on which the soundtrack features the repeated chant: “We cut the heads of the Jews from the right hand of Haider,” in an audio recording which is not sung by the scouts.

The footage was posted on the page of the Al-Amal Lebanese Community, which has been posting images of gatherings of the group known as the Islamic Message Scout Association for at least a decade.


Following the JC’s enquiries, Al-Amal Lebanese Community said the audio was a line of poetry about the Battle of Khaybar, a 7th-century confrontation between early Muslims and Jews. Muslim leader Ali ibn Abi Talib was said to have killed Jewish warrior Marhab ibn al-Harith with a strike to the head during the clash. In the context of Lebanon at war with Israel, the Al-Amal Lebanese Community suggested this line of poetry was about striking Israel and not Jews in general.


The community group also said the audio had been posted in error.

The community group posted the video that featured the song and auto-generated captions on Facebook in July 2024 (Facebook)
The emergence of the video has renewed concerns about extremist Shia organisations running UK youth groups.


An investigation by the JC has revealed links between the mosque where the scouts meet and Iran-aligned individuals.


The government’s former independent adviser on political violence and disruption, Lord Walney said: "Even in the current environment where Jew hatred is increasingly worn as a badge of pride, it is breathtaking to see an organisation openly broadcasting this song.


"This looks like comic Borat-style satire of gross antisemitism but sadly it appears to be reality in twenty-first century Britain.


"These deeply alarming and serious allegations underline the need for major investigation of Iranian exploitation of the UK charity sector and the major failings in the government's system of oversight that has allowed this problem to fester.”


The video, posted in July 2024 was filmed at the Al-Khoei Foundation, a charitable Islamic centre.


Played over images of boys packing boxes and a cleric delivering a sermon, a chant repeatedly declares in Arabic with an auto-generated subtitled English-language translation verified by the JC: “We cut the heads of the Jews from the right hand of Haider.”

Images shared online of the scout group show dozens of children, many of them primary school age, attending activities and ceremonies at the Al-Khoei Foundation.


The children wear typical scout uniforms. In addition to their neckerchiefs, the youngsters have a scout badge that bears a photograph of Musa al-Sadr, a Lebanese-Iranian Shia cleric and founder of the Amal Movement, a Lebanese political party and militia allied with Hezbollah.


In one image of the scouts, a young boy is pictured in military-style camouflage. In others, children are shown saluting, pictured beneath banners bearing the Amal logo or marching through central London wearing black bandanas inscribed with Arabic slogans.


The imagery closely mirrors that used by the Islamic Message Scouts Association in Lebanon, which operates as the youth wing of the Amal Movement. Amal combatants were engaged in fighting with Israel in November 2023.


The Lebanese youth movement appears to have posted in support of terrorism against Israel. Days after the October 7 attacks, the Islamic Message Scouts Association shared a video showing scouts standing on a burning Israeli flag, praising what it described as the “heroic resistance for purifying of Al-Aqsa from the incursions of Zionist settlers”.