Abu Basir al-Tartusi

Abu Basir al-Tartusi الشيخ أبو بصير الطرطوسي
Born	Abd-al Mun'em Mustafa Halima Tartus, Syria
Nationality	Syrian citizen

Abu Basir al-Tartusi is the assumed name of Abd-al Mun'em Mustafa Halima, a Syrian cleric and jihadist . He has been described as one of the "primary Salafi opinion-makers guiding the jihadi movement."

Abu Basir was born in the Syrian city of Tartus, but was forced to flee Syria during the 1979–82 Islamist uprising against Hafez al-Assad and emigrated to London.

Abu Basir leveled harsh criticism against the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Two days after the bombing he published a fatwa on his website that protested the killing of British civilians as a “disgraceful and shameful act, with no manhood, bravery, or morality. We cannot approve it nor accept it, and it is denied islamically and politically.” Abu Basir’s fatwa drew angry responses in Jihadi forums, which led him to publish another online declaration, “The Love of Revenge or the Legal Ruling,” on 11 July 2005.

On the other hand, he has condemned Sayyed Imam Al-Sharif's book Rationalizing Jihad in Egypt and the World which calls for a stop to jihad activities both in the West and in Muslim countries, as “numbness and discouragement” because it tells Muslims that they are too weak to engage in jihad or overthrow their oppressive rulers. He is quoted as saying “More than half of the Koran and hundreds of the Prophet’s sayings call for jihad and fighting those unjust tyrants,” Tartusi exclaimed on a jihadist Web site. “What do you want us to do with his huge quantity of Sharia provisions, and how do you want us to understand and interpret them? Where is the benefit in deserting jihad against those tyrants? Because of them, the nation lost its religion, glory, honor, dignity, land, resources, and every precious thing!”

In September 2005 the cleric as well as Saudi Arabia's senior cleric, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, criticized the tactic of sectarian war in Iraq as called for by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

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