Terrorism

Thursday

Nick Hilton

The Spectator Podcast: The jihadi next door

On this week’s episode, we discuss the relationship between Islam and violence, question why Brexit hasn’t been a factor in this election, and ask you to embrace the darkness. First up: in this week’s cover story, Tom Holland considers why Theresa May was wrong to dismiss the London Bridge terror attack as ‘a perversion of Islam’ rather than interrogating its roots in the history of the religion. He joined the podcast along with Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Islamic Enlightenment. As Tom writes: “Last Saturday night, religiously motivated killing returned to London Bridge. Three men, swerving to murder as many pedestrians as they could, drove a rented van across the very spot where

Will Heaven

To catch a jihadi

My taxi was about 90 seconds behind the murderers who struck on London Bridge last week. My wife and I saw their victims on the road. It made no sense until we stopped and got out. Then with horror we realised what we were witnessing. As everyone has already said, the emergency services’ response was flawless. A police 4×4 screeched up behind and two officers jumped out with submachine-guns. Within minutes, we learnt afterwards, the jihadis had been shot dead — but only after they had killed eight people, and injured scores more. Hundreds of others will have been on that bridge or in Borough Market. I suspect all of

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Is enough enough? Then let’s start deporting

I divide my time between two constituencies, the first a rock-solid Conservative seat in the south-east of England, the other a Labour-held marginal (which the Tories expected to take) in the north-east of England. And the thing I have not seen in either place is a nice blue placard or poster saying ‘Conservative’. Not one anywhere — completely absent. There are loads of them about for the other parties — mainly Labour, but a fairly broad scattering of that vacuous washed-out orange favoured by the Lib Dems and, in the southern constituency, a fair few for the Greens. I suppose you might argue that Conservative voters think it vulgar to

Tuesday

Paul Nizinskyj

Is Islam really the ‘religion of peace’?

On Sunday, in the hours after the London Bridge attack, Christians celebrated Pentecost – recalling when the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostles to come out of hiding and proclaim the Good News. In light of the terrorist atrocity, my parish priest spoke on the fruits of this Spirit – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – as the correct response to such horror. It struck me that while we have become used to proclamations of Islam as the ‘religion of peace’, it’s this message which sets Christianity apart in the face of persecution, and many of us forget the impact that the peaceful philosophy of Christianity has had on the

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Italian government: We told UK that terrorist was on his way 

The third London Bridge attacker has now been named by police as Youssef Zaghba. A 22-year-old Moroccan-Italian, Zaghba was stopped at Bologna Airport in March 2016, heading to Turkey on a one-way ticket. When he was questioned at the airport, he is said to have made his intentions clear: ‘I’m going to be a terrorist,’ Politico are reporting that he said. Having been stopped in his tracks, Zaghba was then investigated in Italy on suspicion of terror offences. But last April, proceedings were halted and no further action was taken against him. The Italian authorities are saying that their work did not stop here though, with Corriere Della Sera reporting that they tipped off

Monday

Theo Hobson

It is not enough for Muslims to say ‘we condemn terrorism’

It is not enough for Muslims to say ‘We condemn terrorism’. Sure – we believe you. But something more is needed. What? It’s easy to get bogged down in the slightly wrong issue of violence and war. We should not expect Muslims to condemn all violence that claims a religious justification – for most war does tend to claim such justification, and an element of this lingers in the West, and few of us are complete pacifists. What we need to hear from British Muslims is that they reject the vision from which terrorism comes. It is a vision of society unified by one political and religious ideology. It is

Ed West Ed West

‘British Values’ won’t help in our fight against terrorism

Steve Hilton has called for Theresa May to resign as Prime Minister, blaming her for the security failures that lead to the three recent terror attacks. Without intimate knowledge of the workings of the Cameron administration it’s hard to know where blame does lie. And there certainly has been a large increase in the number of terror plots for the authorities to deal with this year. The security services have an awesome job in keeping track of as many as 23,000 individuals, and so we may now be facing a sort of Israelification of British life, with barriers going up on London’s bridges this morning. Already we now have bag searches

Friday

Douglas Murray

Blind, bovine hope will get us nowhere – it’s time to change our response to Islamic extremism

Last Sunday, I appeared on the BBC’s Sunday Politics to discuss the aftermath of the Manchester attack. I said what I thought, and various Muslim groups promptly went bananas. This was not caused by my suggestion that this country should finally crack-down on British officials who spend their retirements working as shills for the House of Saud. Nor by my ridiculing of that modern European tradition whereby someone blows us up and we respond by singing John Lennon songs (and now Oasis too). Rather they objected to my simple two-word suggestion that we could all do with ‘less Islam’. In a short film preceding the studio discussion, I mentioned that countries

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 1 June 2017

Ignoring the hadith Sir: Douglas Murray and Jenny McCartney (‘The known wolf’ and ‘A war on joy’, 27 May) are correct to cite hatred of women and young girls and fear of their independence as a trigger for terrorist violence — witness Malala Yousafzai. But it is of course not the only trigger since, denial notwithstanding, it is against the generic and non-gender-specific ‘infidel’ that the Koran fulminates. The prohibition said to exist against killing women and children in war is not found in the Koran (of divine infallibility) but in the hadith (of debatable provenance on a case-by-case basis). The alleged prohibition thus forms a secondary and ultimately dispensable

Taki

High life | 1 June 2017

I feel like an obituary writer, what with Nick Scott, Roger Moore, Alistair Horne — all great buddies — and now my oldest and closest friend, Aleko Goulandris, dead at 90. Mind you, they all had very good lives: plenty of women, lots of fun, accomplishments galore, and many children and grandchildren. And they all reached a certain age — what else can you ask of this ludicrous life of ours? Well, I won’t be writing about the high life this week, but scum life instead. And I’ll tell you why: those innocent young children slaughtered by that Islamist scumbag in Manchester, that’s why. Those sweet young lives deserved better,

Caroline Moore

Too much of everything

Arundhati Roy has published only one previous novel, but that one, The God of Small Things, won the Booker Prize. That was 20 years ago. Early success did not, however, block Roy into neurotic silence: instead, it offered her a platform for verbally intemperate political activism. She is an impassioned campaigner against globalisation, industrialisation and all forms of the arch-enemy capitalism, and a critic of US foreign policy, Israel and the government of Sri Lanka. Her Booker prize money was donated to the campaign against the Narmada Dam project. To Indian critics who condemn her hyperbole as ‘hysterical’ she retorted: ‘I am hysterical, I’m screaming from the bloody roof tops.’

Saturday

James Forsyth

Jeremy Corbyn always blames Britain first

Jeremy Corbyn and his crowd always blame Britain first, I argue in The Sun today. They view the West as being responsible for the world’s ills. It was this worldview that led Corbyn to say in his first speech since the Manchester attack that British foreign policy increases the risk of terrorism at home. Now, to my mind, his view is wrong headed for the reason I outlined here. If Corbyn were to become PM, the country would be led by someone who regards Britain as part of the problem, not part of the solution. Up to now, the Tories haven’t been vocal enough about making this point. Yesterday, with

The Spectator

A proper discussion about terrorism is the best way to honour Manchester’s dead

Until last week, it was thought that the jihadi threat was subsiding and the security services were increasingly able to disrupt any serious plot. The recent attacks involved knives or rented cars – deadly in the wrong hands but a far cry from the 7/7 attacks, or the seven-aircraft Heathrow aircraft bomb plot thwarted in 2006. Yet now, for the second time in our history, a suicide bomb attack has been perpetrated against the public. And this might show that things are getting worse. That as Isis is forced into retreat in Iraq and Syria, the jihadists are preparing to return to Britain with deadlier skills and tactics. While al-Qaeda focused

Friday

Nick Hilton

Nothing hurts Jeremy Corbyn more than being right

With Labour closing the gap on the Tories in the polls, it was only a matter of time before an act of self-immolation returned them to square one. This morning, Corbyn gave a speech in which he drew a link between British foreign policy and terrorist attacks on home soil. This will surely go down like a lead balloon with the party’s working-class base, particularly in the north of England which is still reeling from their worst terror attack in modern history. But in London and the home counties, there might be whispered recognition of the fact that Corbyn is, essentially, right, even if he’s wrong to say it. It seems

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech is a trap for the Tories

The most dangerous thing about Jeremy Corbyn’s speech today, blaming terror attacks in Britain on wars we have fought abroad, is that it is partly true. The temptation for the Conservatives will be to show outrage at the words: ‘Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home’ and to accuse Corbyn of exploiting the Manchester bombing for his own political gain. But they would be extremely foolish to do so because they will be unable to argue away the assertion that British military involvement in the Middle

The Spectator

Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on terrorism, full transcript

Our whole nation has been united in shock and grief this week as a night out at a concert ended in horrific terror and the brutal slaughter of innocent people enjoying themselves. When I stood on Albert Square at the vigil in Manchester, there was a mood of unwavering defiance. The very act of thousands of people coming together sent a powerful message of solidarity and love. It was a profound human impulse to stand together, caring and strong. It was inspiring. In the past few days, we have all perhaps thought a bit more about our country, our communities and our people. The people we have lost to atrocious violence or who

Thursday

Douglas Murray

The known wolf

The meeting place of the two worlds could not have been more sharply defined. In Manchester Arena, thousands of young women had spent the night singing and dancing at a show in Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman tour. Songs such as the hit ‘Side To Side’ were performed: ‘Tonight I’m making deals with the devil/ And I know it’s gonna get me in trouble…/ Let them hoes know.’ Waiting for them in the foyer as they streamed out was Salman Ramadan Abedi, a 22-year-old whose Libyan parents settled in the UK after fleeing the Gaddafi regime. A man whose neighbours said he must have been radicalised in Manchester, ‘all those types’

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 25 May 2017

Home  Twenty-two people were killed and 59 wounded by a man who blew himself up, with a bomb containing metal fragments, in the foyer of Manchester Arena as crowds were leaving a concert by the American singer Ariana Grande, aged 23, who has a strong following among young girls. Of the wounded, 12 were children. Police named the suspected murderer as Salman Ramadan Abedi, aged 22, a Mancunian whose family come from Libya, which he had recently visited. Isis said it was behind the attack. A 23-year-old man was arrested the next day. The official threat level was raised to ‘critical’, meaning that an attack was expected imminently. Soldiers were

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 25 May 2017

In most parts of the world, we have now supped so full of terrorist horrors that the death of 22 people in such a terrible way does not feel decisively worse than what has gone before. You can tell this by the rather pro forma things that politicians say to condemn the attacks. Yet again, the attack is described as ‘cowardly’. This is simply untrue: it must require immense, though repellent, courage to blow yourself up. The other word to avoid is ‘innocent’. It is a word naturally, and rightly, applied to children, but it carries the dangerous implication that some terror attacks might be aimed at the ‘guilty’, and

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Ukip’s tough talk on terror comes with a big risk

Ukip’s success in pursuing the Tories over Brexit will be remembered for a long time. Now, the party thinks it has a new bone of contention with which to go after the government: keeping Britain safe. In the wake of Monday’s night’s attack, Ukip wants to paint itself as the only party serious about rooting out Islamic fundamentalism and tackling terrorism. As if to make that point, while the Tory and Labour national campaigns remained suspended this morning, Ukip pressed ahead with its manifesto launch today. Nuttall came under pressure at the event over this decision, and was asked repeatedly whether he was trying to capitalise on the attack by focusing so squarely on the terror