Fertile ground for radicalism

By Paul Tate

As the shock subsides and realisation sets in concerning the gravity of
the home grown suicide attacks on London last Thursday, the question
on everyone’s lips is: Why did four British-born Pakistani men, one apparently
a primary schoolteacher with a wife and child, deliberately set out to
kill and maim as many of their fellow citizens as possible?
Although troubling to many, the writing has been on the wall for many
years now. Britain has already produced a handful of homegrown suicide
bombers, one of whom, Asif Hanif, 21, from London, accomplished his mission
by walking into a bar in Tel Aviv in 2003 and blowing himself up. His
accomplice, from the English city of Derby, backed out of the mission
and was later found dead floating in the Mediterranean. There was also
the infamous but equally inept “Shoe Bomber”, Richard Reid, who attempted
to blow up a plane bound to Miami from Paris. Fortunately he was overpowered
by passengers before he was able to light the explosive cord concealed
in his shoe and has since been jailed for life in the US.
And there have been many more of their ilk, including Ahmad Omar Saeed
Sheikh, the public school boy and London School of Economics graduate
who masterminded the kidnapping and murder of the American journalist
Daniel Pearl. Sheikh was sentenced to death last year in Pakistan.
So we cannot pretend that this is something new - that British-exported
terrorism wouldn’t come home to roost. Added to this, it is well known
that up to 3,000 British-born Muslims have attended terrorist training
camps in Afghanistan, including, it seems, at least one of the London
bombers, with many more volunteering to fight in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir
and the newly created crڈme de la crڈme of training grounds - Iraq.
Given this context, the only surprise should be that last Thursday’s barbaric
acts took so long in coming and that the security service MI5 failed to
catch the perpetrators before they had chance to murder innocent civilians.
The radicalisation of a section of British Muslims has long been known,
driven by a desire to align themselves with the forces of global jihad.
When Bush divided the world into good and evil, us or them, and subsequently
invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, for many British Muslims the choice was
made easy and they threw their hands in with Ben Laden.
For this reason it is significant that all four suicide bombers carried
with them some form of identity - no doubt to the consternation of those
who sent them. Already some conspiracy theorists are beginning to cry
foul - why would they carry items that could identify them, they ask.
The answer is simple, they wanted to be known