The man behind the demonstration in Luton....

Glad he's banned from the UK..but his influence is still being felt...

The name al-Muhajiroun — the Islamist movement to which the Luton protesters are linked — will be best known among many for the antics of its former leader, Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Dubbed the Tottenham Ayatollah, he was known for his inflammatory speeches, for his group's endorsement of suicide bombings and his organisation's virulent anti-Semitism.

In one of the most famous statements, the self-styled shiekh said that the West would suffer attacks like that of 9/11 repeatedly if it did not change its policies. The group famously described the Washington and New York attackers as the "magnificent 19" and also welcomed the Madrid train bombings.

Al-Muhajiroun was also known for its intimidation of Jewish university students with inflammatory leaflet-drops and radical campaigns that included distributing posters nationwide in 2000 claiming: "The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill the Jews." As a result, it was outlawed on campuses by the National Union of Students in 2001.

Despite the organisation being dismissed by some as a fringe group with a love of publicity that had been over-quoted and over-hyped in the media, the Home Office was believed to be beginning moves to ban the group in 2004 when Mohammed shut it down — apparently as a preventitive measure.

Upon disbanding, it was fragmented into two smaller groups, the Saviour Sect and al-Ghurabaa, both later proscribed, or banned, by the Home Office for the glorification of terrorism.

After a trip to Lebanon in 2005, Mohammed — who alived on benefits while in the UK — was banned from returning to Britain by Charles Clarke, then Home Secretary.

Experts say that al-Muhajiroun continues to exist, in effect, because its supporters simply set up new groups, some overt and others covert, which are not yet proscribed.

One such group, Islam for the UK, which praised yesterday's demonstration with a lengthy statement on its website, is being run by Mohammed's former al-Muhajiroun partner Anjem Choudary. The Home Office said today that it was monitoring all organisations to ascertain whether they support the glorification of terrorism, and whether they should be proscribed.