As I mentioned on another thread earlier today, it does not seem beyond the realms of possibility for someone to attempt to make use of the methods described in terrorist manuals without them necessarily subscribing to that particular terrorist ideology.
For example, I might mine something like, say, The Anarchist Cookbook or The Management of Savagery for hints and tips on how to perpetrate acts of terror without myself being either an anarchist or a Salafi-Jihadist.
With this offender, we simply don’t know what went on.
He may very well be a self-radicalised Lone Wolf jihadist. But that isn’t 100% certain. He may also possibly be schizophrenic, or in thrall to some other form of psychological or ideological derangement.
In which case, it is premature to assume that the discovery of an al-Qaeda manual vindicates the initial assumptions that were made on social media about the faith of the perpetrator of the Southport atrocity.
Plus, none of this in any way justifies what subsequently took place, namely, the besieging of a mosque and a hotel housing asylum seekers (if I remember rightly) putting those inside in fear for their lives.
Checked on X a few minutes ago and the odious Laurence Fox was once again caricaturing Islam as a ‘death cult’.
Away from this board I maintain a blog for students of A level Religious Studies.
Am going to get a shot of Fox’s tweet and, if I can find the time, will dedicate a future blog entry to the comprehensive evisceration of that ludicrous claim.
