A hardline Islamic sect linked to yesterday's terror arrests has a history of targeting young Muslims in Crawley and sending them to die battling British and US forces in Afghanistan.

Gatwick driver Yasir Khan was sacked from his job delivering airline meals two days after the September 11 terror attacks.

The following month he was dead - killed by American bombers while fighting for the Taliban after leaving the Crawley home he shared with his mother to go to war-torn Afghanistan.

Al-Muhajiroun acclaimed him as one of its martyrs.

Friends thought he had gone to the Middle East to get married.

Former team-mates at the Eagles Cricket Club where he played were bemused by the thought of him as an extremist.

A photo taken at a club presentation night three years earlier showed him wearing a T-shirt with the slogan: "The Final Revelation, The Final Message, The Final System, The Final Conquest, Islam."

Mr Khan, of Bilberry Close, Bewbush, Crawley, was killed during an American raid on Kabul.

He had been sacked by Crawley catering firm LSG Sky Chefs for refusing to carry out other duties while planes were grounded and fewer meals were needed.

The same sect claimed in November 2001 that another Crawley Muslim, 26-year-old Abu Waheed, had been killed fighting for the Taliban.

However, he and four others suspected dead turned up alive in Pakistan the following month.

In 2000 the Crawley family of 18-year-old Omar Kyam went to Pakistan to search for him after Al-Muhajiroun sent him to fight in Kashmir.

The extremist Muslim collective hails September 11 as "the magnificent day", describes itself as Islam's "saviour sect" and preaches global jihad, or holy war.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed founded the sect in Jeddah in 1983 to promote the spread of "true" Islam across the world.

Bakri has lived in north London since being expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1986.

He has declared: "We will remodel this country in an Islamic image. We will replace the Bible with the Koran."