Grooming Jihadists: The Ladder of Radicalization and Its Antidote

by Saher Fares • June 1, 2017 at 5:00 am

What you find is that behind every jihadist, who usually starts out as a young, often angry, Muslim seeking a purpose, lies a pulpit ideologue promising rewards and threatening punishments both on earth and in the afterlife.
Violent jihad may be postponed not out of concern for its victims, but rather if it might adversely affect a Muslim community. This view is frequently mistaken as "moderate."
Use the press and social media to expose young Muslims to facts other than those they are fed in mosques and the textbooks of their native countries, including the humanistic values of the West, such as freedom of speech and of the press; equal justice under the law -- especially due process and the presumption of innocence; property rights; separation of religion and state; an independent judiciary; an independent educational system and freedom of religion and from religion -- for a start.

Police officers stand guard on London's Westminster Bridge on March 29, 2017, a week after Khalid Masood began his murderous car-ramming and stabbing attack at the site. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

On March 22, when Khalid Masood rammed his vehicle into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in London before attempting to stab his way to the Parliament building, it was as if the heart and soul of British democracy were under assault.

As horrifying as the terrorist attack was, however -- murdering four innocent people and wounding scores of others -- it belied the magnitude of a much larger problem that has been plaguing Europe and creeping up on the rest of the West. Jihadists committing murder in the name of Islam have left a trail of blood across North America, the Middle East, Australia, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.

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The Muslim Brotherhood Connection: ISIS, "Lady al Qaeda," and the Muslim Students Association

by Thomas Quiggin • June 1, 2017 at 4:30 am

"It should be the long-term goal of every MSA [Muslim Students Association] to Islamicize the politics of their respective university ... the politicization of the MSA means to make the MSA more of a force on internal campus politics. The MSA needs to be a more 'in-your-face' association." — Hussein Hamdani, a lawyer who served as an adviser on Muslim issues and security for the Canadian government.
Several alumni of the MSA have gone on to become leading figures in Islamist groups. These include infamous al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al Awlaki, Osama bin Laden funder Ahmed Sayed Khadr, ISIS propagandist John "Yahya" Maguire and Canada's first suicide bomber, "Smiling Jihadi" Salma Ashrafi.
What they have in common (whether members of ISIS, al Qaeda, Jamaat e Isami, Boko Haram, Abu Sayyaf or others) is ideology often rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood -- as findings of a 2015 U.K. government review on the organization revealed.

Part of an FBI "seeking information" handout on Aafia Siddiqui -- formerly known as the "most wanted woman alive." (Image source: FBI/Getty Images)

In August 2014, ISIS tried to secure the release from a U.S. federal prison of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui -- a Pakistani neuroscientist educated in the United States -- formerly known as the "most wanted woman alive," but now referred to as "Lady al Qaeda", by exchanging her for American war correspondent James Foley, who was abducted in 2012 in Syria. When the proposed swap failed, Foley was beheaded in a gruesome propaganda video produced and released by his captors, while Siddiqui remained in jail serving an 86-year sentence.

ISIS also offered to exchange Siddiqui for a 26-year-old American woman kidnapped in Syria while working with humanitarian aid groups. Two years earlier, the Taliban had tried to make a similar deal, offering to release U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for Siddiqui. These efforts speak volumes about Siddiqui's profile and importance in Islamist circles.

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