LONDON (EJP)---Nearly half of all mosques in Britain are run by a hardline Sunni sect, whose leading preacher in Britain calls on Muslims to "shed blood" in the name of religion, The Times  newspaper reported on Friday.

Citing a copy of a police report it had seen, the daily said that Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain.

The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.

The newspaper said that 17 of Britain’s 26 Islamic seminaries were run by Deobandi Muslims, and added that the sect produces 80 percent of Britain’s home-trained Islamic clerics.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard could not immediately confirm the details of The Times’s article.

According to the newspaper, its investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain’s mosques and its policy of encouraging the recruitment of more “home-grown” preachers.

Ul Haq, 36, was educated and trained at an Islamic seminary in Britain. He heaps scorn on any Muslims who say they are “proud to be British” and argues that friendship with a Jew or a Christian makes “a mockery of Allah’s religion”.

The Times has gained access to numerous talks and sermons delivered in recent years by Mr ul Haq and other graduates of Britain’s most influential Deobandi seminary near Bury, Greater Manchester.

Intended for a Muslim-only audience, they reveal a deep-rooted hatred of Western society, admiration for the Taleban and a passionate zeal for martyrdom “in the way of Allah”.

The seminary outlaws art, television, music and chess, demands “entire concealment” for women and views football as “a cancer that has infected our youth”.

Mahmood Chandia, a Bury graduate who is now a university lecturer, claims in one sermon that music is a way in which Jews spread “the Satanic web” to corrupt young Muslims.

The Times said it made repeated attempts to get Ul Haq to comment on the content of his sermons but he declined to respond.