Jihadist ‘loose canons’ responsible for 7/7, says jihadist

According to an interview in Prospect magazine with a young British Islamic radical, the four bombers who blew up three tube trains on a bus in July, are not from ‘the network’.

In the aftermath of the attacks that killed over 50 people from all over the world on 7/7 (including three Poles) New Labour has tried to blame everyone and everything for the bombings.

Blair has said that British Muslims should fight the ‘evil ideology’ that underpins such violence. Pakistan should do more to control its Islamic religious schools which are, thinks Blair, corrupting young minds.

New Labour are desperate to find the answers outside of Britain and British culture.

Others – mostly left wing – have said that the Iraq war is to blame for alienating British Muslim youth. And when it isn’t the war, then it must be something to do with the socio-economic conditions of many Muslims in Britain that is turning them on to the Jihad.

Well, the interview with Hussan Butt, a 25 year from Manchester, northern England, in Prospect ( see A British Jihadist) seems to contradict each of these points.

The newspapers have been full of speculation that the 7/7 bombings are part of a masterplan by Al-Quaeda, who now has tentacles spread all over the world. But Butt - who has had his British passport taken away from him due to various comments he has made about the necessity of the Jihad and his support of Martyrdom (suicide bombings) – disagrees.

He told Prospect, in an interview conducted three months before the July bombings: "If someone were to attack Britain, they would be a completely and utterly loose cannon. It would be someone who wasn't involved in ‘the network’. Britain is a very liberal country in comparison to America, where Muslims don't have many rights. This is the type of country where you do have a lot more rights. Now with Afghanistan gone, the Muslims don't really have a place where they can come back to and regroup, have time to think and relax, without the authorities breathing down your neck."

So if there are Al-Quaeda types in London, then they are not at all pleased with the results of 7/7, and the subsequent bungling wannabe bombers antics two weeks later.

But what about the argument that it is the mosques that are radicalizing British youth? Butt says that he picked up his radical, violent version of Islam elsewhere.

“I was 17 when I really started practicing. It was through individuals whom I met, who started speaking a language that I understood, who went beyond just the prayer. I understand the huge importance of that.”

Nowhere in the interview does Butt mention the Iraq war. Not once. These sorts of people hated Sadam Hussein, and were quite glad to see the back of him. The war also opened up another front to fight in.

Butt is not impressed either with the argument that it is racism and poor economic conditions of many Muslims in Britain that made them go out and plant bombs in crowded tube trains.

“Many are from quite wealthy families, as I am. I think that's a myth, pushed forward by so-called moderate Muslims. If you look at the 19 hijackers on 9/11, which one of them didn't have a degree? Muhammad Atta was an engineer at the highest level. These people are not deprived or uneducated; they are the peak of society.”

Blair said directly after learning of the bombings of 7/7 that we are going to remain resolute in the face of terrorism, and that they would not defeat the ‘British way of life.’ I waited with baited breath to learn what this ‘British way of life’ actually is, but was disappointed.

And that’s the problem, perhaps. British culture lacks any kind of hold on many young Muslims. British people have little idea as to what being British actually means anymore. The old deferential Britain is gone. The nation's institutions, like the family, marriage, the church, political parties, and communities of all sorts have gone, or are on the way out. And good riddance to most of them. But what’s going to take their place? Where is the new community going to come from?

Why does a kid from Leeds think that British life is so crap that he would rather blow himself, and others up on the 8.50 a.m. tube to nowhere?