RUTHFULLY YOURS

LONDON — It is a Sunday night in London’s East End and the self-styled “most hated man in Britain” is holding court, reveling in his vision of a Taliban victory over America and a world under Islamic Shariah law.

The crowd of about 250 listens intently as Anjem Choudary issues a call to arms in the pristine surroundings of the newly refurbished art deco conference center, built to host weddings and business meetings.

“There are many battlefields,” he says calmly into a microphone. “There’s a battlefield outside 10 Downing Street [home to Britain’s prime minister] and in the mountains of the Tora Bora [in Afghanistan].”

Any man who fails to fight, he warns, will face difficulty when the “angel of death” arrives and he is forced to explain to Allah why he did not raise his hand “against the oppressor” out of fear. “Allah will say to him, ‘Am I not more worthy to be feared than them?'” Choudary says.

“Allahu Akbar!” the men shout out in unison, as if a war cry, during his speech. “Allahu Akbar.” God is great.

A group of women, all heavily veiled and sitting in a screened-off area, remain quiet throughout.

As former leader of the banned Islamist organizations al-Muhajiroun and Islam4UK, Choudary was kept off the bill and appeared as the surprise star speaker at the rally.

His groups may be outlawed but, unlike his female followers, Choudary will not be silenced.

His message is one that echoes across Europe, which experts say is home to thousands of people who would wholeheartedly support Choudary’s “ultimate objective” — the “domination of the world by Islam.”

The majority of Muslims are not Islamists, who believe in a society based on Islamic law, and not all of the latter are seeking world domination or are willing to use violence.

But fear of another Islamist-inspired atrocity after Madrid in 2004 — 191 dead — and London in 2005 — 53 dead — remains high.

Sang Tan  /  AP file

Suicide bombers targeting London’s public transit system killed 53 people on July 7, 2005. Four men detonated devices hidden in knapsacks aboard three subway trains and a double-decker bus, seen here.

Rightly so, according to Dr. John J. Le Beau, a former CIA officer and now professor of strategy and security studies at Germany’s George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies.

“It’s a mathematical certainty there will be a successful attack in Europe at some point,” he told msnbc.com. “The amount of attempted plots we see is not decreasing. I think what we have seen is a … strengthening of attempted attacks that in some cases have come pretty close.”

Le Beau, who cautioned that putting a figure on the number of Islamists was a “soft science,” estimated there were between 5,000 and 10,000 people in Europe “willing to engage in violence.”

In 2007, the German Central Institute Islam Archive said there were 53.7 million Muslims living in Europe.

A backlash is growing. Support for the far-right in normally liberal countries like Sweden and the Netherlands is on the rise. French lawmakers voted for a ban on full face veils. Protest groups, such as the English Defense League which has been linked to soccer hooligans, have made headlines.

Le Beau warned of “an incipient clash of cultures.” The consequences of another terrorist spectacular — intelligence reports recently warned an al-Qaida-linked group was planning to hit Western Europe with a commando-style raid like that on Mumbai, India — could be profound, he suggested.