London Bridge terror attack - 2 dead (not including attacker)

[SVP]

Two genuine Twitter accounts that I keep tabs on in relation to terrorism are those of Peter Neumann and Shiraz Maher.

Both have considerable expertise in this area and their tweets provide informed analysis and comment, as well as alerting their followers to relevant new publications and articles.

It's a quick way of keeping abreast of developments.

A few years ago I read a whole raft of books about ISIS. Just in case anyone is interested, Neumann's brief and exceptionally readable Radicalized: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West and Maher's Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea would rate as my personal top two.

William McCants The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State was also excellent, as was Olivier Roy's Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State. Additionally, Patrick Cockburn's reportage on events in Syria and Iraq as they unfolded was first rate.

I haven't read either of them, but on the issue of homegrown terrorism, Michael Kenney's The Islamic State in Britain and Rafaello Pantucci's 'We Love Death As You Love Life': Britain's Suburban Terrorists are both meant to be very good.

Going even deeper, the vexed and controversial issue of the extent to which the actions of ISIS are grounded in Islam itself is addressed in Asma Afsaruddin's publications, especially The First Muslims: History and Memory and Contemporary Issues in Islam. Khaled Abou El Fadl's The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists is also impressive and very readable.

Finally, John Holroyd's Judging Religion offers an ethical appraisal of religion (from the perspective of an atheist) that, in my view, is especially nuanced. Julian Bond's online review of this publication is worth seeking out (for some reason, I can't post a link to it here).

Thanks for the time in posting I will try to read as I don’t really understand the background. In your opinion do you think a Jihadist will be converted over a cup of tea and renounce his or her beliefs?

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Obviously classified, you’ll find out in 50 years if you’re still here. I was responding to someone essentially calling someone a loony for thinking it could happen, facts are, people in power have proposed it the in past, nearly 60 years ago. Time will tell if it’s happened again since. I guess it has with chemical attacks on civilians in Syria blamed on others for sure. Twin Towers, unlikely. We’ll see.

don’t be silly.
Really sensitive documents are never released into the public domain in the UK.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

In your opinion do you think a Jihadist will be converted over a cup of tea and renounce his or her beliefs?

It's been a while since I read the publications I referred to. So I have forgotten more than I can remember.

However, John Holroyd's outstanding book is relevant here. He refers to a study by Fraser Egerton that concludes, 'the journey to becoming a militant Salafist in the West is rarely the result of prolonged self reflection, theological investigation [within Islam] and political analysis. Many of those who have gone on to militancy demonstrate a very poor grasp of the Qur'an and hadiths'.

He also cites Terry McDermott, who described the faith of members of the Hamburg cell, responsible for 9/11. as 'unthought', and mentions that Ruud Peters, an academic expert on jihad and an expert witness at the trial of the Hofstad group duly corrected just about everything that the group had to say about jihad on that occasion. Another researcher, Scott Atran, is then quoted:

'None of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers or thirty-odd Madrid train bomb conspirators attended a madrasah and the one 7/7 London underground suicide bomber who did attend a madrassah in Pakistan did so very briefly.'

Holroyd concludes that 'an in-depth knowledge of Islam does not seem to be the inspiration for terrorism. Egerton's studies reveal instead...that the use of violent images, of the torture and killing of fellow Muslims, acts time and again as a catalyst and rallying cry of belligerence'.

This is a pattern that seems to have been repeated in the case of recruitment to ISIS. To cite one, very brief example, two recruits were known to have purchased the publication Islam for Dummies before setting off to join the organisation.

Of course, the theology of Salafi-jihadism, the most toxic brand of Saudi Wahhabism, has also proven to be influential, along with the ideas of Sayyid Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is why Khaled Abou El Fadl and the British Muslim intellectual Ziauddin Sardar have been especially excoriating of this theology in their books.

From this pattern, it becomes clear that the most effective counters to Islamic militancy today come from within Islam, from better informed Muslims. Here is Scott Atran again:

'...the only organisations I have found that have actively enticed significant numbers of voluntary defections from the ranks of would-be martyrs and jihadis - in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and elsewhere - are Muslim organisations.'

In other words, if you want a jihadist to renounce their beliefs, they need to be placed with someone more knowledgeable about their faith. From memory, I think this is the approach taken by the PREVENT programme. Also from (possibly very dodgy) memory, I seem to recall reading somewhere that prison imams have - at least in the past - been likely to have had precisely the opposite effect because they haven't been carefully vetted.

Two other books may also be helpful in this respect: Ed Husain's The Islamist: Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I saw inside and why I left, and Maajid Nawaz's Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism to a Democratic Awakening.

I have copies of both books but haven't got around to reading them yet. But Husain's more recent work The House of Islam: A Global History is excellent.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

While doing a bit of digging around to write the above reply, I came across some notes I made on Olivier Roy's book about the appeal of ISIS. I am adding them here to emphasise the point that this is specialist territory and that the truths one encounters along the way with respect to the phenomenon can often be counter-intuitive.

Roy's comments are mainly based on a French database with details on approximately 100 French jihadists.

Here's a brief glimpse of some of what he has to say:

'There is no standard terrorist profile but there are recurrent characteristics...that have hardly changed over the past twenty years.'

French homegrown terrorists tend to be second generation, may have been involved in petty crime, tend to get radicalized in prison, originate predominantly from the Maghrebans (or the Indian subcontinent in the case of the UK), and are frequently 'born again' Muslims who have suddenly renewed their religious observance, and shift into action fairly shortly afterwards.

In each 'cell' (if they are not operating as 'Lone Wolves), there is typically at least one actor who was well acquainted with members of a previous network, [and the members] are often siblings or childhood buddies [who see] themselves as being in generational conflict with their parents who they regard as being too passive, and are frequently married and have become fathers in the months preceding their action in order to leave behind 'black widows' and 'lion cubs'.

Then Roy goes on to say this:

'Most radicals are deeply immersed in today's 'youth culture'...they go to nightclubs, pick up girls, smoke and drink...[there are] a surprising number of arrests for drink driving, another sign of their low level of religious observance...Their dress habits are those of today's youth: brands, baseball caps, hoods, in other words streetwear...a beard is no longer a sign of devoutness...They never wear the usual Salafi garb - and it is not really to go unnoticed... as they never make a secret of their (re)conversion to Islam.

Their musical tastes are those of the times: they like rap music and go to clubs...[They] are also gaming enthusiasts and are fond of violent American movies such as Brian de Palma's Scarface....kung-fu training rooms and selfies with guns [tend to feature]....There is even a group of jihadi bikers and manga fans in Belgium, the 'Kamikaze Bikers'...some of its members were prosecuted for terrorism....The language spoken by radicals is always that of the country of residence - French, in this case. They often use youth slang and switch to a Salafized version of banlieu talk when they reconvert...Prison time puts them in contact with their radicalized peers....'

'They do not live in a particularly religious environment. Their relationship to the local mosque was ambivalent: either they attended episodically, or they were expelled for having shown disrespect by the local Imam. None of them belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood...none of them had taken part in proselytizing activities, none of them were members of a Palestinian solidarity group....There is no religious movement that radicalized them 'religiously' before they went over to terrorism. If indeed there was religious radicalization, it did not occur in the framework of Salafi mosques, but individually or within the group.'

Roy then goes on to add this:

'In a word, radicalization indicates a discontinuity that is often incomprehensible for the person's immediate circle [usually, this includes the parents]...At the same time, it is obvious that the radicals' decision to identify with jihad and claim affiliation with a radical Islamist organisation is not merely an opportunistic choice: the reference to Islam is central to going into action, and makes all the difference between jihad and other forms of violence young people indulge in...the fact that they choose Islam as a framework for thought and action is fundamental, and it is this 'Islamization of radicalism' that we must strive to understand.'

The rest of the book is an attempt to do that.

 

[Fame Monster]

That Lucasz guy should be given the George's Cross. Incredible display of courage.

I've not seen bravery like that since that Scottish guy kicked a terrorist in the balls outside Glasgow airport.

 

[mexico1970]

That Lucasz guy should be given the George's Cross. Incredible display of courage.

I've not seen bravery like that since that Scottish guy kicked a terrorist in the balls outside Glasgow airport.

Hear hear..

But what'll really happen is that somewhere down the line he'll be charged with racially motivated violence because this country is in a right state.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

He’ll probably get a George Cross and a ferry ticket to leave on Feb 1st.

 

[Uncle Wally One Ball]

Hear hear..

But what'll really happen is that somewhere down the line he'll be charged with racially motivated violence because this country is in a right state.

Of course he wont

 

[Ancient Citizen]

That Lucasz guy should be given the George's Cross. Incredible display of courage.

I've not seen bravery like that since that Scottish guy kicked a terrorist in the balls outside Glasgow airport.

Very true, my apologies for bringing levity to the discussion, but Billy Connolly described terrorists brilliantly.

 

[Fame Monster]

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/cri...arning-together-rehab-programme-a4301771.html

All of the things the victims preached undone by the man they tried to help. Very sad. Very Shakespearean.