American radical Islamist preacher and ideologue Ahmad Musa Jibril found Muslim fans all over the Western world from his home in Dearborn, Michigan. His words grew in demand not through radio slots or personal appearances—like a singer on a promotional tour—but social media.
In the wake of the London Bridge attack claimed by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) in June, it was revealed that the lead attacker in the three-man cell, 27-year-old Khuram Shazad Butt, watched the Palestinian-American preacher’s sermons freely before he mowed down civilians and launched a stabbing rampage in the popular Borough Market area of the British capital.
The video-sharing platform continues to be criticized by experts and governments for its failure to remove a slew of extremist content, or failing to take it down quickly enough. The world’s most popular video company is now taking steps, but not for everyone.
It has removed tens of thousands of videos of arguably Al-Qaeda’s most dangerous preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, to include mostly news reports about the figure, the New York Times reported Sunday. But a search by Newsweek found that Jibril’s talks, interpreted by many as jihadist propaganda, remain easily accessible to radicals far and wide.
Jibril’s official YouTube channel that had around 17,000 subscribers at the time of the London Bridge attack has had all of its videos—mostly his sermons—removed after reports of its wide accessibility. But his speeches have continued to proliferate on the video-sharing platform.
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