Ever since I was caught up in the London bombings of July 7, 2005, I have
tried to learn more about terrorism. To understand is not to condone, nor to
forgive. But I believe that by studying the roots of radicalisation, we have
a better chance of preventing atrocities in the future.
Last year I read about Hassan Butt, a former jihadi who has renounced
extremism and is now engaged in deradicalising other extremists. Then a
fortnight ago I participated in a Newsnight discussion about whether he
should be prosecuted for his past fundraising for terrorism. If Butt’s
outreach work could stop potential suicide bombers, I argued, he was more
useful to society out of jail - no matter what he might have condoned before.
On Tuesday a counter-extremist think tank called Quilliam will be launched. It
has been created by former activists from radical Islamist organisations who
are familiar with the mindset and methods of extremist jihadi groups.
Another hopeful sign. But sometimes I still want to weep.
Last Thursday I sat in Kingston crown court with some of the families who had
been bereaved by the London bombings, watching the trial of three men
alleged to have conspired to cause explosions on 7/7.
We were shown footage of two of the explosions and pictures of the devastated
carriages and double-decker bus. We also saw a home video of the lead
bomber, Mohammed Siddique Khan, kissing his baby daughter and telling her,
“I have to do this thing for our futures” as he prepared to head off for
martyrdom. It was shattering to watch.
My own research into extremism has led me to the blogger and independent
film-maker Dave Bones, who has spent five years filming the men who used to
gather outside Finsbury Park mosque listening to Abu Hamza preach. A few
weeks ago he introduced me to Musa Ahmet, who spent nine months inside
Belmarsh prison with some of the UK’s most notorious terrorists and terror
suspects, before being found innocent. He was released in May 2007.
Musa’s younger brother, Atilla, is still in Belmarsh. Formerly the bodyguard
of the radical cleric Abu Hamza, Atilla pleaded guilty to incitement to
murder and was sentenced to six years and 11 months.
After Abu Hamza was jailed in February 2006, Atilla took over Friday prayers
in the streets outside the mosque. He was dubbed “Hate Preacher Atilla the
Scum” by the media. In an infamous interview with CNN in August 2006, he
said that Bush, Blair, the army, police and banks that charged interest were
all “targets” - and that 9/11 was a “deserved punch in the nose for America”.
When I meet Musa he tells me that his brother has changed; he had stepped in
to protect a guard from another prisoner and he is studying the Koran
properly for the first time. According to Musa, Atilla now understands that
the words of the prophet should not be used to justify violence against
innocents.
Later, when I manage to speak to Atilla on the telephone in prison, he tells
me that he wants to “say sorry to the British and American people” for what
he has said in the past.
Why, I ask the engagingly friendly Musa, did his brother say such terrible
things for the cameras? “He likes the limelight,” explains Musa, who loves
his younger brother but believes that he “lost it” when he became part of a
radical group.
Settling down on my sofa, Musa tells me his family’s story. Born in 1959, one
of seven children of Turkish Cypriot parents who moved to England in the
1950s, he started skipping school in his teens and getting involved in
gangs. Lacking academic qualifications, both he and Atilla became minders
for a gangster family.
In their spare time they both enjoyed drinking and dancing and having
girlfriends, by whom they had several children. “I classed myself as a Brit,
doing what everyone else was doing,” Musa says.
One day an old clubbing mate came to the cafe that the brothers were running
and urged them to join him in embracing Islam. Atilla was almost instantly
captivated. “He changed within weeks,” says Musa, who was initially thrilled
when his brother gave up smoking, swearing and “naughty stuff” and started
praying five times a day. Soon afterwards Musa also embraced Islam, although
he did not become part of a radical group.
By this point Atilla had been asked by his new friends to manage security for
Abu Hamza at the mosque. And after Abu Hamza was jailed, Atilla became even
more outspoken - saying “some really stupid things”, according to his
brother.
Musa believes that Atilla became more and more volatile and paranoid – partly
because of the influence of the extremists in his circle and partly because
of increasing surveillance by the police. On September 1, 2006, Atilla asked
Musa to accompany him to a Chinese restaurant where he was meeting “some of
the brothers” – including Mohammed Hamid, nicknamed Osama Bin London.
As a group leader for radicalised young Muslims, Hamid was hosting Islamic
“chat nights” every Friday as well as paint-balling and paramilitary
training sessions in the English countryside, which were attended by – among
others – the four extremists later convicted for trying to bomb the London
transport network a fortnight after 7/7.
Atilla never went on the training weekends, although he did attend Hamid’s
Friday night meetings. In court the prosecution maintained that Atilla was
the “amir” – or commander – of the group, but Musa disagrees. “You can’t be
the amir in somebody else’s house.”
On the evening that Musa went for a Chinese meal with his brother, Hamid’s
group began drifting in one by one. The brothers had just finished their £5
meal when a police raid began. To Musa’s amazement, he was arrested by
several police officers. After being taken to Paddington Green station, he
was detained for a week while police searched his house, then refused bail
after they discovered a flare signal kit in his wardrobe, which he had
confiscated from his son years before.
Charged at Paddington Green, he was then locked up in Belmarsh. Musa tried not
to worry too much about his five children and his future. He describes the
atmosphere among the Muslim inmates as brotherly, with people playing
practical jokes “like the Marx brothers”. And he became very close to
several of the young men convicted of plotting to set off a huge fertiliser
bomb in a London nightclub.
I ask him if the young radicals convicted of plotting the deaths of civilians
had preached extremism inside. “No,” he says. “People just want to forget.
They just want to have a laugh. They want to phone up their mum, they want
to speak to their wife, have a game of pool.”
He is not condoning what they have done. Those who planned to hurt innocents,
he says, “will have to answer to Allah for what they’ve done”.
While Atilla suffered claustrophobic panic attacks in prison, Musa says that
the knowledge that he was innocent kept him sane.
“I was bitter. I am bitter. But I’m not telling the police not to do their
job. If you look at it, they’ve done a really good job. Look at how quiet it
is . . . you’ve got no one out there really saying anything any more.”
Musa thinks that young Muslims are attracted to radical groups because of the
hyped-up intensity that they generate. It is like joining a gang: the
intensity makes them forget that they have “got to follow the laws of the
land”, he believes.
Of the bloodcurdling threats that landed his brother and so many others in
jail, he says, “Sometimes I think: was it just kids, trying to get a buzz,
trying to feel big?” Of the “brothers” he met in jail – whose chilling
conversations about slaughtering innocents were heard in court – he says:
“It was cloud-cuckoo land, little kids dreaming up things that could never
be. I thought: what idiots.”
That may be true but it did not stop others with the same views from murdering
52 people in London and trying to slaughter many more. The subject clearly
makes Musa uncomfortable. He is shocked when I tell him that the police
believe there are at least 2,000 young Islamists actively plotting attacks.
Talking about his terrorist friends in Belmarsh, he says that he finds it
“hard to see beyond what I knew of them. It’s strange, because I was with
them all my time in there and I got to know them personally. And I never got
to see that side to them. They seemed so bright, fun-loving . . .”
What is it that turns “fun-loving lads” into suicide bombers?
“I think when they get into extremism it can build up over time; they get it
instilled into them . . . And these youngsters, if they can’t see a future,
if they haven’t got anything going for them, they just think: what is there
for me? And if you’re promised paradise, and they’re in dreamland thinking,
paradise, wives . . . that could turn a person into a jihadi” – for which
read suicide bomber.
He thinks “maybe 25%, 30% of the brothers in Belmarsh would rejoice if there
were another 7/7 or 9/11”.
“There are arguments about this subject – we used to discuss this kind of
thing in there,” he says. Many others he met believe jihad abroad is
justifiable, but also accept that the “Koran condemns the shedding of
innocent blood”.
Do many people in Belmarsh advocate bombing civilians?
“I believe after a taste of prison a lot of people have come to their senses,”
says Musa.
I ask if he thinks it would make a difference if the people teaching Islam
were better theologians, given that many who get involved in extreme Islam
seem to know little about their religion. Musa agrees that it is easy “to
put people on the wrong road and that people new to Islam are vulnerable to
the wrong messages”.
Would he let his own children listen to Abu Hamza or a similar preacher? He is
adamant that he would not.
I guess all we can hope for is that hot-headed young men will realise that
self-righteousness and rhetoric are not the same as reading the Koran for
yourself and discovering the facts. That submission to God is not the same
as vengeance against unbelievers. That some dreams of paradise lead to hell
on earth.
Hassan Butt, Shiraz Maher, Ed Hussein (author of The Islamist) and the other
former jihadis who now try to turn young Muslims away from radicalism have
been turned themselves by discovering the truth about Islam. I can only hope
that Musa’s fierce brothers in Belmarsh and elsewhere will also learn to
temper their anger. With time to study and learn from those who have
renounced violence and hate, they have a chance.
Rachel North is the author of Out of the Tunnel, a 7/7 memoir Additional
Research: Dave Bones at http://malung-tv-news.blogspot.com
Rachel North's article 'Reforming Radicals' April 13 2008
A refreshingly balanced piece that dares to discuss proper issues and is not afraid to side step the status quo and pitch the debate at human level where there are many shades of grey and not just black and white. Whilst I do not support any form of violence, It is not so hard to imagine why people would want to make a stand against The UK and some of its foreign policies. Not least disaffected youth with very few prospects, not a lot to loose and whom share a common brotherhood of faith with 100,000's of people who have had there lives devastated by decisions made by our government in our name. Until we can openly admit that it is OK to understand these peoples motivation, we will continue to push them further away which only increases how distant they feel and makes it that much easier to look at us as targets rather than just other people.
Simon (white middle class 30 something London)
Simon Myers, London, UK