Mullah Krekar, an Al Qaeda-linked Islamic leader who was granted refugee status in Norway, told a Norwegian newspaper today that Islam will win. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

Norway’s most controversial refugee, Mullah Krekar, told an Oslo newspaper on Monday that there’s a war going on between “the West” and Islam. He said he’s sure that Islam will win, and he also had praise for suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

“We’re the ones who will change you,” Krekar told Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet in his first interview since an uproar broke out over cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims.

“Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes,” Krekar said. “Every western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries are producing 3.5 children.

“By 2050, 30 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim.”

He claimed that ”our way of thinking… will prove more powerful than yours.“ He loosely defined “western thinking” as formed by the values held by leaders of western or non-islamic nations. Its “materialism, egoism and wildness” has altered Christianity, he claimed.

Krekar, who’s been supported by the Norwegian government since arriving as a refugee from northern Iraq in the early 1990s, now faces deportation after violating the terms of his refugee status and being deemed a threat to national security.

Krekar told Dagbladet that he favours Islamic rule where political and religious leaders are one and the same. One such leader he respects, he said, is Osama bin Laden. “Osama bin Laden is a good person,” Krekar said. He claimed Osama bin Laden is considered a terrorist simply because he lacks his own state.

“Those who say Osama bin Laden is a terrorist are themselves killing our women and children,” Krekar said.

Attempts to “spread democracy,” he claimed, are merely a ruse to wage war against Islam, adding that “the West destroyed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan” because “it feared the Islamic state.”

UPDATE at 3/13/06 3:54:29 pm:

Agora has translated the full interview: Mullah Krekar: Islam will be Victorious against the West.