My Brother the Bomber

[davidbfpo]

Catching up and have just watched a topical BBC report on this theme, on last night's Newsnight, a "serious" news programme; footage starts just after opening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ht_12_01_2009/

Some points I'd qualify, e.g. the use of the term "moderate" Muslims. It is quite clear that the perception that the UK is not doing enough about Israel's actions is having a marked impact on the Muslim community, where anger is growing.

Seems related to this thread as an update and MSK is cited.

davidbfpo

[William F. Owen]

Catching up and have just watched a topical BBC report on this theme, on last night's Newsnight, a "serious" news programme; footage starts just after opening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ht_12_01_2009/

Some points I'd qualify, e.g. the use of the term "moderate" Muslims. It is quite clear that the perception that the UK is not doing enough about Israel's actions is having a marked impact on the Muslim community, where anger is growing.

Can't view this, as I am not in the UK, but I'd walk shy of the so-called "moderate Muslims" in the UK of whom I have met a good few in TV studios. Some advertised as moderate, are clearly not. Some "Moderate Muslims" think the US "had it coming" on Sept 11th.

Amazing how the killing of greater numbers of Muslim Civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Darfur are seen as "less radicalising," than in Gaza.

The answer is obvious but clearly unacceptable to some.

[Jedburgh]

CEPS, Aug 08: Al Qaeda in the West as a Youth Movement: The Power of a Narrative

Why do we bother, in Europe, about ‘Islamic radicalisation’? The answer seems obvious. There are at least two good reasons: one is terrorism, with its security implications; the other is the issue of integrating second-generation migrants in Europe, apparently the most fertile ground for recruiting terrorists. For most observers, the link between terrorism and integration is a given fact. Al Qaeda-type terrorist activities carried out either in Europe, or by European residents and citizens abroad, are seen as the extreme form, and hence as a logical consequence, of Islam related radicalisation. There is a teleological approach consisting of looking in retrospect at every form of radicalisation and violence associated with the Muslim population in Europe as a harbinger of terrorism.

This approach is problematic, not so much because it casts a shadow of suspicion and opprobrium on Islam as a religion and on Muslims in general, but because it fails to understand the ‘roots of violence’ and it arbitrarily isolates ‘Muslim’ violence from the other levels of violence among European youth. This, in turn, has two negative consequences: it does not allow us to understand the motivations for violence among people joining Al Qaeda (who are far from being, as we shall see, devoted Muslims fighting for their Middle Eastern brothers), and it unduly concentrates on “what is the problem with Islam”, precisely playing on Al Qaeda’s own terms, and spawning a debate that will have little or no impact among the segments of the population who are susceptible to joining Al Qaeda.....

[davidbfpo]

An update on the excellent article.

After the trial result last week, when three men were acquitted of involvement in the 7/7 bombings, The Daily Telegraph has returned to their home town, Beeston, a suburb of Leeds and reports: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/t...means-MI5.html

Two of the defendants were found guilty of conspiracy to attend terrorist training camps overseas (Pakistan IIRC) and were jailed this week. Far more on this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7507842.stm

davidbfpo

[Jedburgh]

UK Home Office Statistical Bulletin, 13 May 09:

Statistics on Terrorism Arrests and Outcomes Great Britain 11 September 2001 to 31 March 2008

For the period between the start of the data collection on 11 September 2001 to 31 March 2008 there were 1,471 terrorism arrests. This excludes 38 arrests made between the introduction of the Terrorism Act 2000 on 19 February 2001 and 11 September 2001 and 119 stops at Scottish ports under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.....

[Presley Cannady]

This is an extraordinary case study. In fact, it's so interesting I fear it will join a number of others in founding a pop-psychiatry around radicalism. I say psychiatry because we're attempting to diagnose and in some places completely divine a plate of mental disorders with the expectation that treatment exists. Reviewing the literature I've come to three conclusions:

1. No evidence exists that linking any set of identified radicals by psychiatric disorder. The OP article explicitly states this.
2. Psychology has yet to present a single conclusive, non-normative profile of radicalism. The article's author strongly hints at this, to the point of digging up an almost tautological point raised by the earliest empirical sociologist he could find.

I suspect radicalization, extremism or whatever you want to call it--if it has any meaning at all--is an extremely conditional phenomenon, I do so with my only evidence being the extraordinary diversity of forms in which it takes (not all considered ill in civil society) and the methods its adherents employs (most if not all more frequently and ably used by people we decidedly deem non-radical). And this is just within the cohort we more clearly understand by the name "Islamic terrorist."

[bourbon]

Al Qaeda recruits back in Europe, but why?, by Sebastian Rotella. Los Angeles Times, May 24, 2009.

Four men say their training experience in Pakistan wasn't what they hoped for. Anti-terrorism officials wonder if they're just biding their time, ready to strike in Europe

"What you see in videos on the Net, we realized that was a lie," Othmani told police. "[Our chief] told us the videos . . . served to impress the enemy and incite people to come fight, and he knew this was a scam and propaganda."

Disenchantment aside, the accounts of four of the returning militants arrested in Europe combine with intercepts to paint a detailed picture of Al Qaeda's secret compounds. They also reinforce intelligence that a campaign of U.S. Predator drone airstrikes has sown suspicion and disarray and stoked tension with tribes in northwestern Pakistan, anti-terrorism officials say.

At the same time, the case shows that wily militant leaders still wage war in South Asia and train a flow of foreign recruits. The few trainees from the West remain an urgent concern. Anti-terrorism forces have detected at least one American, a convert to Islam, who trained with Al Qaeda in Pakistan during the last year, Western officials say.