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| 'Life in London made my boy a terrorist' |
| 2006-05-04 |
| Zacarias Moussaoui's family in France blame the British for what happened to a once-carefree youth. They trace the great change in Moussaoui's life to the moment the 23-year-old arrived in Britain in 1992, to attend a business studies course at South Bank University, after graduating in engineering in Perpignan in southern France. Until then, his family and friends agree, the young man had been full of smiles. He had gone to bars and drunk beer and had a French girlfriend, with whom he ultimately shared a flat. The couple even won a dance contest. He vowed to make his fortune in London and after a few months managed to get a place to study for an MA in international business studies. But in the ultra-tolerant atmosphere that existed in London before the September 11 attacks, such "wayward" young Muslims were exactly the material being sought by radical Islamists. Young men like Moussaoui were fed into the machine and emerged as hardline religious terrorists, primed for slaughter. His mother, Aicha al-Wafi, who along with her husband was born in Morocco, has echoed the complaints of the French counter-intelligence service, the DST, accusing the British authorities of being far too permissive in the years before 2001. "I would say that England is responsible for many things because it allowed this fever to spread around the country," she told the Canadian television channel CBC. "These young people go to England, and then they scream hatred and vengeance in front of mosques. They let the fever spread." His brother, Abd-Samad, agreed: "I believe that Britain has fed a snake at its bosom, and has been bitten by the snake.'' The statements clearly contain some truth. But during his trial the court heard that Moussaoui had a "violent and unstable" childhood in France, spent large amounts of time in orphanages, saw his mother beaten by his father, a boxer, and was rejected by his girlfriend's family as "a dirty Arab". Both his sisters later were to suffer from schizophrenia and his father remains heavily sedated in a psychiatric hospital in Nanterre. Psychologists say the family has a history of mental illness going back at least four generations. Whatever his reasons, Moussaoui began to attend Brixton mosque and was quickly drawn into a group of young extremists, including the "shoe bomber" and former mugger, Richard Reid. He attended speeches by Abdullah el-Faisal, a Jamaican convert who studied in Saudi Arabia and was banned from the mosque after calling for the murder of Hindus, Jews and Americans. He moved into a flat in Brixton which he shared with David Cortellier, who was later convicted in France of assisting terrorism. Increasingly at odds with the moderate religious elders in Brixton, the group moved to Finsbury Park mosque, where they listened to the radical outpourings of Abu Hamza, the hook-handed preacher ultimately jailed for seven years this February for inciting murder and race hatred. They also heard the preachings of Abu Qatada, a Jordanian-born zealot who is facing possible extradition to his homeland. At some point during this period, Moussaoui was "turned". He took a terrorist training course in Afghanistan in 1995 and then went to Chechnya, the war-torn Russian province which has become a training ground for jihadists. By 1998 he was back in Afghanistan and then returned to London. The following year, the DST asked MI5 to watch him. But he was not considered an experienced terrorist. After his arrest at a flight training school a month before the September 11 atrocities, the British were asked for information by the FBI and CIA on five occasions. There was no response until two days after the attacks, when the British said they had new information indicating that Moussaoui attended al-Qa'eda camps. America's September 11 commission noted: "Had this information been available in late August 2001, the Moussaoui case would almost certainly have received intense and much higher-level attention." Life for Moussaoui |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #20 TW nails it. I believe she is asking us to take down the mosques in England. I'm sure Blair would like to hear that. If she wasn't muslim, I'd almost think she was schizo....but I believe the religion's affected her logic/thinking. |
| Posted by: BA 2006-05-04 22:11 |
| #19 "I would say that England is responsible for many things because it allowed this fever to spread around the country," she told the Canadian television channel CBC. "These young people go to England, and then they scream hatred and vengeance in front of mosques. They let the fever spread." FGS - islamic mosques spewing hatred and jihad are now the fault of infidels not taking them down? YJCMTSU. At least, she recognizes that the phobes at the mosque are a problem, so are the mosques. Can we take them out - is that what you are saying Mommy? |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-05-04 20:39 |
| #18 gotem the first time sludge - never explain. ;> |
| Posted by: 6 2006-05-04 18:06 |
| #17 I'm taking the wife and kids to London next month. I hope they don't become Islamonuts. |
| Posted by: JDB 2006-05-04 16:15 |
| #16 povoviding = providing |
| Posted by: sludge 2006-05-04 14:25 |
| #15 "It was the atmosphere's fault for povoviding breathable air to my son. If it weren't for oxygen, my son would not have become a terrorist." |
| Posted by: sludge 2006-05-04 14:24 |
| #14 'Life in London made my boy a terrorist' twas the chips fault, they fellem thata way. |
| Posted by: the Twelfth Imami 2006-05-04 13:17 |
| #13 Yeah, and if the Brits had cracked down on the extremists who Moussaoui's mom blames, and had done so before 9/11, she would have squealed 'racism', 'islamofobia', etc. Whether she likes it or not, truth is that mom Moussaoui had a hand in turning this guy into the animal he is. Oh, and by the way mom, what about all the radical filth spewing from the mosques of France at the same time??? Sheesh! |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2006-05-04 13:01 |
| #12 Bang! Bang! Maxwell's Silver Hammer.... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-05-04 12:06 |
| #11 I believe it. All that freedom and middle class living is hell on earth, let me tell you! /sarcasm Burn the damn mosques to the ground, kill the clerics and toss out anyone that doesn't forsake Islam. |
| Posted by: DathVader 2006-05-04 11:41 |
| #10 "The couple even won a dance contest." Wow. |
| Posted by: Fordesque 2006-05-04 11:15 |
| #9 HowardUK is right. Once again, it's a case of "speaker of a truth" and "the truth itself," and the family determining that the British were too lenient on Islamic extremism does not necessarily make the latter false. (Emphasis on 'necessarily', in a 'p therefore q' way.) |
| Posted by: Spomogum Fleper7978 2006-05-04 10:51 |
| #8 It seems to me that his trouble started when he started hanging around the mosque. So, it was Islam that caused him to go astray. Better burn all the mosques now. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-05-04 09:12 |
| #7 Until then, his family and friends agree, the young man had been full of smiles. He had gone to bars and drunk beer and had a French girlfriend, with whom he ultimately shared a flat. The couple even won a dance contest. Dancing, drinking beer and French whores were his downfall? Strange, never effected any of the rest of us in a similar manner. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-05-04 08:50 |
| #6 "I would say that England is responsible for many things because it allowed this fever to spread around the country" "...and was rejected by his girlfriend's family as a dirty Arab" I'm with ARMYGUY, this is just a variation of the "Cultural Timebomb" excuse. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2006-05-04 08:33 |
| #5 The officer Krupke defense (West Side Story). "He's gotta social disease!" "I'm depraved ona count of I'm deprived!" etc. |
| Posted by: WTF! 2006-05-04 08:00 |
| #4 Mental illness and islam: an explosive combination. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-05-04 07:34 |
| #3 "Psychologists say the family has a history of mental illness going back at least four generations." How many generations to get back to the seventh century? 'Everybody's crazy except you and me, and sometimes I'm not so sure about you.' - who said that? |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-05-04 07:27 |
| #2 AG - they do have a point - we have been far too tolerant of Islamists seeking sanctuary in the UK. Guess 9/11 was a wake-up call. Not sure if we've fully got it yet tho'... |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2006-05-04 07:14 |
| #1 BULLSH!T!!! It's ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE!!!!!! |
| Posted by: ARMYGUY 2006-05-04 06:54 |