THE sprawling grounds of the Jameah Islamiyah school at Mark Cross, East Sussex — where anti-terrorist operations were concentrated yesterday — have been exploited by extremists in the past.

In the late 1990s Abu Hamza al-Masri, the former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, sent followers to camp in the 54-acre grounds.

The school’s trustees say that they disliked Abu Hamza’s presence and asked him to leave. Police do not suspect the school authorities of involvement in extremism.

But one of Abu Hamza’s former followers told The Times that parties of young men from Finsbury Park — including some arrested in Yemen for plotting a bombing campaign in 1998 — regularly camped in the school grounds.He said: “It was more about bonding and brotherhood — there would be survival exercises, woodwork and religious instruction. Other groups went there too, but Finsbury Park used to book quite often.”

Abu Hamza, who is serving a seven-year-prison sentence for inciting murder, also organised camps in the Brecon Beacons and Scotland, and authorised one of his followers to attempt to establish a jihad training centre in Oregon, USA.

When the North London mosque was raided in January 2003 police found military-style equipment, including a stun gun, replica firearms, knives and chemical weapons, that had been used at weekend camps.

The discoveries prompted police to look more closely at what went on at the “Islamic camps” run by extremist groups.

Participation in outdoor activities is now recognised as a tool used by extremist recruiters to bond groups and to select those more suitable for “military” activities.

Since 2003 a number of terrorist cells have been identified by intelligence surveillance teams as taking part in such activities. Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the July 7 bombers, went on a white-water rafting trip a month before blowing themselves up on the London Underground.

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