[pnews-news] The Enemy Within Europe

     -----
    / o o \
====OO=====OO===
 http://pnews.org/
Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||


--
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/printout/0,13155,1121976,00.html

The Enemy Within

Rootless and restive, young Muslims in Europe are increasingly turning to
religious extremism. An inside look at the threat from homegrown militants

BY BILL POWELL

The last time Myriam Cherif saw her son Peter was in May of 2004. She 
quietly wept as the two of them stood at the elevator on the fifth floor 
of the gritty public-housing project where they lived just north of Paris. 
Myriam, 48, was born in Tunisia, moved to France when she was 8 and became 
a French citizen. Peter's father, who died when the boy was 14, was a 
Roman Catholic from the French Antilles in the Caribbean. But Peter, 23, 
took a different path. In 2003 he converted to Islam and became a devout 
Muslim, after years of worshipping little more than video games and French 
rap stars. He took to wearing loose trousers and a long tunic instead of 
blue jeans. Then, one day in spring last year, the headphones of a digital 
recorder playing Koranic prayersjammed into his ears, Peter told his 
mother he was heading to Syria to study Arabic and the Koran. At first, 
Peter e-mailed his mother every couple of days, sending her snapshots and 
news of his studies in Damascus. Then in July, he told her he was headed 
for a "spiritual retreat" and would be out of touch for a while. She heard 
nothing until last December, when she received a brief phone call from a 
French government official who told her that Peter had been captured by 
U.S. soldiers in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Today Peter, one of five French citizens in American hands, is being held 
at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, U.S. military officials in Iraq say. 
More than a year since she last heard from her son, Myriam is still trying 
to understand how, in the streets and cafés of Paris, Peter and other 
young Muslims like him were lured to give up their lives in the West to 
pursue jihad. "They saw aggressive, violent images on the Internet, and 
asked questions about why Muslims were suffering abroad while European 
countries were doing nothing," she says. "It's like they set off a bomb in 
their heads."

The July 7 suicide bombings in London provided a deadly reminder to 
European governments of the chilling reality they confront: the adherents 
of the most radical forms of Islam are found not just on the 
Pakistan-Afghan border or the violent streets of Iraq. Instead, in Europe, 
the enemy is within, made up of young men born and raised in working-class 
neighborhoods throughout Britain, the banlieues of Paris, and the gritty 
industrial towns of the Netherlands and Belgium. Most Muslims in Europe, 
of course, are not radicals, and deplore the violence committed in Islam's 
name. But with disturbing frequency, deeply alienated young Muslims across 
the Continent, men like Peter Cherif, are finding spiritual and political 
homes in the most radical, anti-Western strains of Islam ? becoming 
homegrown jihadis, determined, apparently, to bring the fight to the 
countries in which they were raised. Listen to the videotape purportedly 
made by Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the London bombers. Khan denounces 
Europe's "democratically elected governments" for carrying out 
"atrocities" against Muslims. "We are at war and I am a soldier," he 
warns. "Now you too will taste the reality of this situation." A 
blood-curdling threat ? issued in his distinctive Yorkshire accent.

Young men like Khan are members of generation jihad ? restive, rootless 
Muslims who have spent their lives in Europe but now find themselves 
alienated from their societies, or outraged by the policies of their 
governments, or both. "There are young people who wouldn't mind if the 
Central Station in Amsterdam blew up," says Abdul Jabar van der Ven, 28, a 
Dutch Muslim preacher who converted from Catholicism at the age of 14. He 
adds that he would not applaud such violence, but that many young Muslims 
in Europe ? raised in secular households and communities ? are too 
unfamiliar with Islamic doctrine to filter out the radical interpretations 
they hear. "Many of the youngsters who become extremists have no knowledge 
of Arabic or religion," he says. "So they go on the Internet and read all 
these sites."

Their determination to vent their rage is apparent with each new police 
sweep in Europe. Last week, British police arrested three men suspected of 
international terrorism after a series raids in southeast England. Earlier 
this month, cops in the Netherlands arrested seven radicals allegedly 
preparing assaults against Dutch political figures and government 
buildings, while busts in France have landed six men with links to 
underground Algerian networks in jail on evidence they were orchestrating 
terror strikes. "Just as unsettling as the operative cells we discover are 
the support networks and isolated groups we don't always identify," warns 
a senior French investigator. "Those are far more numerous, and many are 
able to become fully operative for attack when instructed."

While the precise number of European jihadis is impossible to pinpoint, 
counterterrorism officials across the Continent believe the pool of 
radicals is growing. A 2004 estimate by the French police found that 
around 150 of the country's 1,600 mosques and prayer halls were under the 
control of extremist elements; in a study of 1,160 recent French converts 
to Islam, 23% identified themselves as Salafists, members of a sect that 
has been associated with violent extremism. In the Netherlands, home to 1 
million Muslims, a spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service says it is 
believed as many as 20 different hard-line Islamic groups may be 
operating. Some are simply prayer groups adhering to radical 
interpretations of the Koran, while others may be organizing and 
recruiting for violence. In Britain, authorities say that as many as 3,000 
veterans of al-Qaeda training camps over the years were born or based 
within its borders.

What explains the proliferation of Europe's homegrown radicals? Interviews 
by Time correspondents with dozens of Muslims across Western Europe reveal 
consistent answers as to why so many are responding to the call of 
extremism. Some lack a sense of belonging in European societies that have 
long struggled to assimilate new immigrants from the Islamic world. Many, 
in particular younger Muslims, suffer disproportionately from Europe's 
high-unemployment, slow-growth economies. Others are outraged over the 
bloodshed in Iraq and the persistent notion that the West is waging an 
assault on Islam itself. "There's a spreading atmosphere of indignation 
among normal Muslims that is echoing among the younger generation," says a 
French investigator with a decade of antiterror experience.

It's echoing loudly, in part because the anger is amplified by 21st 
century technology. In the past, the alienated would simmer in relative 
isolation, unable to connect or communicate with those who shared their 
anger. The Internet has changed that. Critical to the rise of generation 
jihad has been the ease with which its members can communicate with each 
other and peruse controversial websites like Tajdeed.net, run by Saudi 
dissident and London resident Mohammed al-Massari. While his other English 
site hosts what he calls "philosophical discussions," the Arabic site 
shows gruesome videos of U.S. and British troops being blown up by Iraqi 
insurgents, and beheadings of kidnap victims. Al-Massari says he cannot 
control what is posted there. These days, the very existence of such sites 
alarms the British government. Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the wake of 
the summer bombings, vowed to crack down on "specific extremist websites."

Combine alienation, unemployment, political anger and the power of the 
Internet, and the result is toxic. In neighborhoods of north and east 
London, Sajid Sharif, a 37-year-old civil engineer who goes by the name 
Abu Uzair, once handed out incendiary leaflets for the now dissolved 
al-Muhajiroun extremist youth movement. In the climate of suspicion 
engendered by the July 7 attacks, firebrands like Sharif have adopted a 
lower profile. He has stopped recruiting on the streets and now leads a 
radical group from his home. His so-called Saviour Sect claims several 
hundred supporters and seeks to unite all Muslims worldwide under a strict 
conception of Islamic law. That might seem fanciful ? except that Sharif's 
mentor, al-Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri Muhammad, was one of the first 
clerics to lose his right to live in Britain. In August, Bakri was barred 
from returning from a vacation abroad when Britain's Home Secretary 
Charles Clarke declared his presence "not conducive to the public good." 
Sharif says he isn't concerned about the threat of eviction because he is 
British-born, and his lawyer has told him he has little to worry about. 
"Anyway," he says calmly, "it is all in the hands of Allah."

Sharif is bearded, wears a long white gown and quotes nonstop from the 
Koran and Hadith (a collection of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad). 
His Pakistani parents are secular Muslims, he says, and still speak little 
English. In his youth he smoked and went to nightclubs. It was not until 
he was a university student in London that he embraced Islam. "Since I 
have come to Islam, I have a lot of tranquility," he says. Now he tries to 
steer people away from drugs, drink, crime and smoking. Sharif's 
supporters refuse to vote in elections because his sect recognizes only 
Shari'a, not secular law. While he does not openly support terrorism, he 
says that the July 7 attacks were retaliation for Britain's support of the 
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "The majority of Muslims in the U.K. are 
frustrated, but they cannot speak," he says. "They will not condone the 
London bombings, but inside they believe that Britain had it coming."

What's striking about the rhetoric of second-generation radicals like 
Sharif is how much it differs from the experience of many newer arrivals 
to Europe. Moroccan Farid Itaiben, 30, who has lived outside Madrid for 10 
years, came to Europe to find a job and a more comfortable life. "If we 
had work at home, believe me, we'd get out of Europe," he says. "We're not 
here to spread the Word, we're here simply to make a living." Itaiben has 
no patience for jihadis who come to Europe to fight holy war; his brother, 
Mohammed, was among those killed by the train blasts in Madrid on March 
11, 2004. "Those people," he says, "weren't Muslims who did this thing. 
How can they call themselves Muslims?"

It's a critical question: how do second- generation European Muslims 
define themselves? Many say they feel a part neither of the country of 
their birth, nor of their parents' heritage. That some often live on the 
dole, unable to find work, only enhances their sense of estrangement. The 
attitude of Riad, a 32-year-old French citizen who has been unemployed 
since 2002, is all too common. Sitting in a café in the Lyons suburb of 
Vénissieux, he says, "They say we are French, and we would like to believe 
that as well. But do we look like normal French people to you?" His friend 
Karim, 27, insists they are discriminated against because of their long 
beards. "Who will give us a job when we look like this? We have to fend 
for ourselves and find a way out."

That lack of connection to their native societies can be aggravated by 
extremists. Zaheer Khan, a 30-year-old British Muslim who grew up in Kent 
in southeast England, says his own experience was fairly common among 
Muslims of his generation. He was drawn to radical Islam while in college 
in the mid-1990s, he says. The Wahhabi and Salafist recruiters, he says, 
"would tell you that things like taking out car insurance is against 
Islamic principles, or voting ? this is haram, forbidden. Slowly, the 
disengagement [from British society] was there. You didn't say, 'Let's 
explore what it means to be living in Britain.' This didn't come up."

The feelings Khan had back then ? though still devout, he has rejected 
radical Islam ? are wide-spread among second-generation European Muslims. 
"The problem is that they have no real roots," says Dominique Many, a 
lawyer for one of the Muslim Frenchmen taken into custody by French 
officials on suspicion of volunteering to fight against U.S. forces in 
Iraq. "In Tunisia, they are considered foreigners. In France, they are 
considered foreigners. This is the new generation of Muslims."

Rootlessness is compounded by economic struggle. On the whole, Muslims in 
Europe are far more likely to be unemployed than non-Muslims. In Britain, 
63% of all children of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, ethnic groups that 
together account for some 60% of Britain's Muslims, are categorized as 
poor; the national average is 28%. Affluent Muslims help the radical 
cause, but the jobless are "the easy marks, the fodder of jihadist 
networks," as a French law-enforcement source says.

Some of those marks can be found at a youth and job-seeking center set 
along a canal in the depressed Belgian industrial town of Mechlin, between 
Brussels and Antwerp. Yassin el-Abdi, 24, an accountant who's been 
unemployed for three years, recently scanned job listings on a computer 
and complained bitterly about the extremists in Europe who, in his view, 
are making a bad situation for Muslims even worse. "These people who are 
planting the bombs are wrecking things for us," says el-Abdi. But the 
reality, says el-Abdi's friend, Said Bouazza, who runs the center, is that 
joblessness among Muslims in Europe can only add to jihadist ranks: "It's 
like a ticking time bomb. There are people who fight back by opening their 
own store. Or they plant bombs."

Tough economic times and racial discrimination are age-old triggers of 
anger and disillusionment. Just a decade ago, many of the youths now 
taking up the extremist cause might have been more inclined to drift into 
a life of crime or drug use. The more committed would have had to journey 
to training camps in Afghanistan and then return to isolated sleeper cells 
in order to pursue jihad. Now, they don't need to leave home. The Internet 
has played a huge role in fostering a sense of community among fanatics 
and those who would join them. It brings jihad to them ? instructions on 
how to build a bomb, for instance, are just a click away. Sayful Islam, 
26, formerly a government tax-office employee in Luton, an industrial town 
48 km north of London, and then a full-time spokesman for al-Muhajiroun in 
the area, now concentrates on spreading his radical message among the 
local youth. "Even if my own family were killed by a jihadi's bomb, I 
would say it's the will of Allah," he says.

There's little doubt that, in the last two years, the disaffection and 
anger shared by many young Muslims has coalesced around a single, 
galvanizing issue: the war in Iraq. Time's reporting across Europe shows 
that the conflict has had a profoundly radicalizing effect on some 
Muslims, convincing them that the U.S. and Britain are bent on eradicating 
Islam, and that the only proper response is to fight back. The sentiment 
voiced by the head of the Arab European League in Belgium, a radical 
Muslim named Karim Hassoun, is all too common: "The more body bags of 
Americans we see coming back from Iraq, the happier we are." A senior 
French security official says that Iraq "has acted as a formidable 
booster" for extremist groups.

While the flow of jihadis from Europe to Iraq has not been enormous ? 
probably between 20 and 30 from France, the French security source told 
Time ? a handful have returned home with deadly new skills. French 
intelligence picked up one young man this summer who "was in the process 
of setting up an actual network of operatives here in France, and had 
bomb-making materials for future use." In the Netherlands, where 1 out of 
every 16 Dutch citizens is a Muslim, it's trendy for kids to hang on their 
bedroom walls half-burned American flags with Stars of David replacing the 
five-pointed U.S. ones, says Mohammed Ridouan Jabri, founder of the 
recently formed Muslim Democratic Party.

Governments in Europe have tried a range of approaches to contain radical 
Islam. After the July 7 bombings, Blair proposed a zero-tolerance policy 
toward hateful rhetoric, pledging among other things to deport 
foreign-born clerics seen to be inciting violence. A terrorism bill, with 
new measures, is now starting its passage through Parliament and is 
expected to become law in a few months. But an original proposal to make 
glorifying terrorism an offence has now been more clearly defined so that 
such statements must show intention to incite further terrorism. French 
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has launched similar initiatives but has 
proposed other security laws allowing police to monitor and store e-mail 
and telephone communications that have civil libertarians howling. And in 
the Netherlands, where filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim 
extremist last November, government officials have tried to limit the 
number of foreign imams preaching in mosques. Earlier this month, the 
Minister for Immigration and Integration, Rita Verdonk, called for a ban 
on the burka, the traditional Muslim dress that covers a woman's face and 
body, on public transport and in government buildings.

Arguably the most important question now is what will happen within Muslim 
communities in Europe to arrest the unmistakable slouch toward anger and 
violence.

The enraged minority is in no mood to turn down the heat. At a recent 
meeting of the radical Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir in Birmingham, the 
group's spokesman, Imran Waheed, 28, launched into a 40-minute lecture in 
front of about 80 people, insisting there's no need for the Muslim 
community to apologize for July 7. Many in the audience nodded in 
agreement. But some seemed ambivalent, caught between their abhorrence of 
terrorism and a belief that their grievances are not taken seriously.

After praying with the other men in an adjacent room, a smiling 
twentysomething in pressed trousers and shirt, with neat round glasses 
perched on his nose, began by pointing out that Islam forbids violence and 
the bombing of innocent people. "Our hearts are bleeding for the [July 7 
victims]," he said. Then in the next breath, he criticized the U.S. and 
Britain for ignoring the ways in which their policies may be adding to 
young Muslims' feelings of alienation. As a result, he says, the members 
of his generation "are frustrated. Their voices are not being heard." If 
the world hopes to understand ? let alone overcome ? the anger that roils 
Europe's young Muslims, it had better start listening.


Reported by Jessica Carsen/ Leeds, Bruce Crumley/Paris, Helen Gibson a




|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
          M A I L I N G   L I S T S
(1) pnews-news - NEWS mailing list - (text only)
    Send "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as subject
     ----> pnews-news-request(at)inyourface.info
=======================================================
(2) pnews-views - VIEWS mailing list- (text only)
OPEN discussion - "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as subj
 Send to  ------> pnews-views-request(at)inyourface.info
=======================================================
(3) fightback - articles and pointers distribution list
(html/text) - expert informed opin., credentialed authors
          ----> http://pnews.org/dada/
========================================================
(4) ATTN: WEBMASTERS - Link Exchange/improve site rank
----> links_only-subscribe(at)googlegroups.com - or, go to:
-----> http://groups.google.com/group/Links_Only
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||