Acolytes of hate gain a foothold

PASSERS-BY often look twice at the Sefton mosque in Sydney's west. It used to be a church and vestiges of that architectural heritage remain. But the building is now demanding attention for a different reason. It is at the centre of a power struggle by members of a group accused of being a conduit for terrorism.

Now some of its Sydney members are being accused of staging a brash takeover bid for the Sefton mosque, so they can install their own more extremist preacher and wield their fast-expanding influence over its followers. A Sydney magistrate issued an apprehended violence order against an alleged member of the group who tried to evict the Sefton mosque's imam from his own home and threatened to kill him if he returned...

Director of the national security project at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Carl Ungerer, says it is a tactic used in Britain by the hardline Hizb ut-Tahrir. "It is very much in keeping with what we have seen in the UK," Ungerer says

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