When I was a student at Newham College in the East End of London in the 1990s, and an activist of Hizb ut-Tahrir, “Islamism”, or political Islam, seemed to have answers to difficult questions about identity and belonging. It offered an explanation of the world as I found it. It offered solutions to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It gave definition and direction to a global social network of savvy, supremacist Muslims, who were in revolt against the status quo at home and abroad. My teenage rebellion was channelled into conflict with my parents’ much more sober Islam. Eventually, I grew out … Continue reading Radical departure – A New Political Islam?

In 2006, the investigative reporter Jeff Stein concluded a series of interviews with senior US counterterrorism officials by asking the same simple question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shia?” He was startled by the responses. “One’s in one location, another’s in another location,” said Congressman Terry Everett, a member of the House intelligence committee, before conceding: “No, to be honest with you, I don’t know.” When Stein asked Congressman Silvestre Reyes, chair of the House intelligence committee, whether al-Qaeda was Sunni or Shia, he answered: “Predominantly – probably Shia.” Wrong. Al-Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim … Continue reading The great divide – knowing your Sunni and Shia!

http://ubiwar.com/2010/02/04/crowdsourcing-counterterrorism/ by Tim Stevens Lets be clear about this: the UK government’s new initiative for reporting hate, extremism and terrorism online has a very limited shelf-life. On the other hand, what else could government have done? To be fair to the Home Office, they have made it perfectly clear that “most hateful or violent website content is not illegal. While you may come across a lot of things on the internet that offend you, very little of it is actually illegal.” Good call, and a message it’s good to see reinforced. They also clearly indicate what steps you can take if … Continue reading Crowdsourcing Counterterrorism

A Muslim lawyer who was defending a man accused of planning the Mumbai terror attacks has been gunned down in a suspected underworld hit. Shahid Azmi, 33, was representing Fahim Ansari, an Indian accused of carrying out reconnaissance work for the Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people in November 2008. Mr Ansari is on trial in Mumbai alongside Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, the Pakistani national alleged to be one of ten Islamist militant gunmen who kept India’s commercial capital under virtual siege for 60 hours. Mr Azmi, whose rise from convicted child terrorist to respected advocate had made him a Muslim … Continue reading Mumbai terror lawyer Shahid Azmi killed in ‘professional hit’

England’s daft and pleasant land Irreverent, bawdy and unafraid of morris-dancing Sikhs: the new Englishness has no interest in the BNP’s rancid nationalism I went morris dancing the other day. Sorry, but there it is, with a hey nonny-nonny. I was researching a book about Englishness and how it has changed, and you can’t get more English than a bunch of middle-aged bearded men with bells on their ankles, waving hankies and prancing like their piles are on fire, can you? My dancers were not like that at all, actually; but in general, the morris is a pursuit that makes people … Continue reading Englishness has no interest in the fascism of the EDL etc etc

Free speech wasn’t meant for this Scott Roeder’s YouTube interview allows the man who killed Dr George Tiller to justify and spread his message of violent hatred On May 31, 2009, Scott Roeder walked into Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas and shot Dr George Tiller, who was handing out church bulletins to congregants. Tiller, a physician and medical director of Women’s Health Care Services, one of only three clinics in theUnited States to provide late-term abortions, died – and he died because Roeder, as he explained in his confession, believed himself justified in order to “defend innocent life”. Roeder, like … Continue reading Christian Terrorism in the US and Free Speech