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Britain
The Martyr Market
2003-11-21
LAST month, a 22-year-old Yemeni asylum seeker in Sheffield said goodbye to his son and his pregnant British wife and went to Iraq to blow himself up.
"G'bye, dear! I'm off to Iraq!"
"Shall I wait dinner?"
"No, I'm going to explode."
Jihadis trawling their websites have yet to locate which “car of death” Wail Abdelrahman was driving,
(UN? Red Cross? Italian Carabinieri?)
but have informed his family and friends in Yemen that he received a martyr’s burial.
The dogs ate what was left of him, except for a few samples for the CIA gene bank.
Are jihadis so embedded in Britain? If so, Abdelrahman was the ultimate sleeper. Aside from a wisp of a goatee, there was nothing to suggest his extremism. He arrived in Sheffield penniless three years ago, after fleeing his Aden tenement for political asylum in Britain.
"Political asylum" has a whole new meaning in the UK these days.
Some of his best friends were non-Muslims, and after bouts of tae kwon do fights, at which he excelled, they would all head down to the Den of Satan pub. He was so proud of a new three-piece suite he bought for his council house that he invited friends in to sit on it. His only hint of political commitment was two trips to anti-war marches in London.
"The peace movement does not condone terrorism"
When he left last month, he told friends he was flying to Dubai because he was tired of racist neighbours dumping rubbish through his letter-box.
Returning the complementary Korans he had sent them.
“We’ll meet again,” he tearfully told his tae kwon do coach, Andy Hill, who had signed his passport application and recommended him for the British Olympic Squad. But Abdelrahman was also well trained. He studied computers and was praised as a martial arts don. He ran a tae kwon do club in the annex to his local mosque, called Goodwill, packing sermons into his punches. The mosque grandees saw Abdelrahman as a star attraction, handy for keeping local youths off drugs and the streets. They said he was following in the tradition of “Prince” Naseem Hamed, the boxing champion and local hero who built the mosque.
"He was a quiet man, beloved by all..."
Should the police have been more suspicious? Some draw comparisons to the Finsbury Park mosque of Abu Hamza, an Egyptian veteran of the Afghan jihad, which housed a martial clubs in the basement until the security forces raided the premises. And Sheffield has a record of jihadi activity. Abdelrahman arrived shortly after another asylum-seeker and Afghan jihad veteran in Sheffield, Lamine Maroni, was caught plotting to blow up a Christmas market in Strasbourg. Only after Abdelrahman had flown did the security forces search his house, arrest four of his students on terrorism charges and interrogate colleagues. Before that, friends say, the authorities had approved his asylum application and issued travel papers.
Who’s running this asylum anyway?
Worrying stuff. Yet, in comparison to earlier jihads, the British deployment to Iraq has been a bit of a let-down. Bosnia’s war attracted British Muslims in their hundreds. The 2001 Afghan campaign helped fill some of the Guantánamo Bay cells with Taliban from Tipton, and a drop-out from the London School of Economics masterminded the killing in Pakistan of Daniel Pearl. Earlier this year, two British suicide bombers died in Israel. These days, though, long-faced Islamists are surprisingly subdued. “Even the collections and the preaching feel more restrained,” moans an Afghan war veteran.
Did the failure of so many jihadis to return from Afghanistan cool the community’s enthusiasm?
The growing zeal of the British security forces and waning enthusiasm from British Muslims could be to blame. But jihadis say there is a more important factor: the supply of bombers exceeds demand, and British bombers are too expensive. “For the cost of equipping and transporting a British fighter into Iraq—about $2,000—we can shift 20 guerrillas into Iraq from neighbouring Arab states and Chechnya,” says a retired jihadi field officer. Arabs, he says, are also less likely to have visa problems. Yemenis, like Wail, need no visa to enter Syria, although, according to the retired jihadi, at least one Arab embassy is doing its best to accommodate by issuing passports to other nationals willing to thwart America’s war in Iraq.
France, perhaps?
Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy

#5  "Typical conservative non-sequitor argument"

I wasn't aware that it was an argument, but don't let that get in the way of a typical lib strawman or a good authoritarian pronouncement: "UK-homeland for Euor/Islamo nutzo...."
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy   2003-11-22 1:38:47 AM  

#4  *sigh* Didn't Chirac admit that France's five-million-strong Arab population is part of why he refused to aid the US in Iraq? Hence the joke about France ...

... you do realize it was a joke, right?
Posted by: Lu Baihu   2003-11-22 12:13:42 AM  

#3  Yeah Atomic--blame France--when your whole rtile was about the UK--the homeland for Euor/Islamo nutz--moreso than France! Typical conservative non-sequitor argument
Posted by: NotMikeMoore   2003-11-21 10:51:14 PM  

#2  "Like a Rock"?
Posted by: Frank G   2003-11-21 7:36:23 PM  

#1  "Car of Death" needs a theme song.
Posted by: BH   2003-11-21 4:58:58 PM  

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