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For the Islamist doctor, terror is healing

Wednesday, 4th July 2007

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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Imagine the terror of the Chinese officials

David Tang

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

Nudge, nudge: meet the Cameroons’ new guru

James Forsyth

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

The cross-party consensus on welfare reform echoes the Gingrich–Clinton revolution

Fraser Nelson

Fraser Nelson on the coming political week

The Falun Gong show that meek can be provocative

Lloyd Evans

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

Big Brother versus YouTube: let the Beijing Games commence

Mark Leonard

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

Forward to the past

James Forsyth

James Forsyth on Robert Kagan's new book

A manual for our times

Matthew d'Ancona

Matthew d'Ancona on the new book by Philip Bobbitt

To bring peace to the Afghans, talk to the Taleban

Adam Holloway

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

An appeal from beyond the grave

Richard Beeston

Richard Beeston on Benazir Bhutto's final appeal

Inside Hamas: my journey to its secret heart

Mike Chamberlain

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