Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How London’s gangs could spawn tomorrow’s jihadis

What will happen when the teenagers stabbing each other on the streets of London grow up? Some will go straight, some will go to prison and some will probably follow a similar trajectory to Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. These two evolved from being minor figures on the south-east London gang scene into two of the most notorious Islamist killers in Britain, responsible for murdering Lee Rigby outside Woolwich barracks in 2013. In the aftermath of the murder, Harry Fletcher, a former assistant general secretary of the probation union Napo, explained:

“A major concern in recent years has been the crossover between criminal groups and Islamist organisations. It’s mainly gangs in Southwark and Lambeth and we’re talking about dozens, not hundreds, of members who are at risk. The Islamist groups will exploit both the gang members’ psychological and economic vulnerability.”

The gang scene to which Adebolajo and Adebowale belonged (and also Aine Davis, one of the most infamous British members of Isis) at the turn of the millennium has grown in the last decade, both geographically and ethnically. If Adebolajo and Adebowale – two men of Christian Nigerian background – can be radicalised, then imagine how much easier it will be for the Islamists to manipulate the minds of young Muslims when they grow out of street gangs but still need the camaraderie of belonging to a unit of so-called ‘soldiers’.

That’s what happened to Khuram Butt, the ringleader of last year’s London Bridge atrocity that left eight people dead and nearly fifty wounded. As a teenager growing up in east London, Butt was into gang culture and grime music before he became radicalised in his early twenties. Once an extremist, Butt tried “to reach out to children in an attempt to pass on his ideology”, a task made easier by the willingness

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