OTTAWA

Being sodomized is acceptable in Islam if the goal is to carry out jihad, according to a cleric on a new video making the rounds online.

In a video posted on YouTube last month, and as reported by the New York-based think-tank Gatestone Institute more recently, cleric Abu al-Dema al-Qasab's instructions include details on how to carry out a successful suicide bombing mission by hiding explosives in the bomber's anus.

"However, to undertake this jihadi approach you must agree to be sodomized for a while to widen your anus so it can hold the explosives," al-Dema al-Qasab tells followers in the video.

There is no indication where or when the video was recorded, but appears by the screen to have been aired on Fadak TV, a Shia-based satellite television station. The background of al-Dema al-Qasab is also unknown.

Author Raymond Ibrahim, who wrote the article for Gatestone, denies claims the video is a hoax intended to insult Islam.

The Gatestone Institute's homepage indicates it specializes in international policy and the Middle East.

Sodomy is forbidden in Islam but according to al-Dema al-Qasab's video, everything is permissible if the objective is in the best interests of the jihad.

In 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, attempted to blow up a plane bound for Detroit by igniting a bomb planted in his underwear. That led to the introduction of body scanners at airports worldwide which can see through clothing.

The scanners, however, cannot see inside body cavities, and authorities expressed fear at the time that terrorists would likely try to evolve their attacks to avoid detection.