Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi say that radical Islam is less the product of extreme deprivation than of the thwarted aspirations of the Muslim middle classes and professionals
The car bombs in London and Glasgow show that a global counter-offensive against the war on terror is well underway. Although Iraq is the main zone of conflict, Saudi-financed Wahhabi radicals — known to polite Western journalists as ‘Sunni insurgents’ — seek to export ‘al-Qa’eda in Iraq’ everywhere throughout the world.
But with the British car-bomb campaign a new element has emerged. For the first time in Europe doctors are among the suspects. One of them, Mohammed Asha, is described as a ‘brilliant’ neurosurgeon from Jordan; another, Bilal Abdullah, is an Iraqi doctor. The phenomenon of the radicalised professional broadens a hitherto limited field of inquiry for terror investigators. Our organisation, the Centre for Islamic Pluralism, has recently completed a study, ‘Scientific Training and Radical Islam’, in which we analyse how the professionals in a number of scientific disciplines are transformed into bloodthirsty extremists.
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David Tang reflects on his visits to Beijing in the run-up to the Games, where Western expertise has been harnessed to the ruthless efficiency of China’s government machine
The economist Richard Thaler — a favourite of the Cameron and Obama camps — talks to James Forsyth about the power of ‘nudging’: small transformative acts of persuasion
Fraser Nelson on the coming political week
Lloyd Evans joins the dissident movement in a ritual exercise near the Chinese Embassy. He is unsettled to find himself understanding why China’s rulers get so paranoid about them
Mark Leonard, Britain’s pre-eminent analyst of modern China, says the Olympic genie is out of the bottle. The prospect of global scrutiny has actually increased repression as the authorities try to stamp out dissent. But digital technology is impossible to police
James Forsyth on Robert Kagan's new book
Matthew d'Ancona on the new book by Philip Bobbitt
Adam Holloway says that Britain’s strategy in Afghanistan is misconceived. Nato’s military presence should be reduced and the battle for hearts and minds fought more imaginatively
Richard Beeston on Benazir Bhutto's final appeal
The film-maker Mike Chamberlain has gained unprecedented access to the Islamist organisation. He recounts the cloak-and-dagger methods that led him to its leaders and its foot soldiers
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