Religion Watch Archives

Monitoring Trends in Religion - From February 1990 to January 2016

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Archives
    • By Issue
    • By Article
    • By PDF (2008-14)
    • By PDF (1985-97)
    • All Articles
  • Sections
    • Current Research
    • Findings & Footnotes
    • On/File
  • Google Search
You are here: Home / Archive / Converts to radical Islam a new concern in Europe

Converts to radical Islam a new concern in Europe

May 1, 2004 by Richard Cimino

Print-friendly

Converts to Islam are being singled out by Al Qaeda as potential weapons in carrying out terrorism, reports the New Republic magazine (April 26).

Of the 212 individuals implicated in major terrorist attacks around the world since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 18 were converts. But now the use of native born (often women and light-skinned) converts for terrorist purposes in order to evade post-September 11 security has increased enough to worry European investigators. A French convert, David Courtailler, allegedly has ties to a suspect in the Madrid bombings and to a group assisting terrorists in Belgium.

According to French Islam expert Olivier Roy, a new breed of “protest converts” are emerging in Europe who embrace Islam “to stick it to their parents, [to] their principal. They convert in the same way people in the 1970s went to Bolivia or Vietnam [as part] of a very European tradition of identifying with a Third World cause.”

That does not mean that most of such converts turn to terrorism, but a few may be attracted to the anti-imperialist message of radical Islam. Such converts “want to show other Muslims their worth. They want to go further than anyone else. They are full of rage and they want to prove themselves,”according to French intelligence official.

Osama bin Laden’s now jailed chief of operations, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, regularly deployed Europeans to in order to elude post-September 11 roundups. In France, surveillance is focusing on radical converts, often young people, with family and adolescent problems.

Print-friendly

Filed Under: Archive

Also in this issue

  • On/File: May 2004
  • Findings & Footnotes: May 2004
  • Hindu activism challenges Western scholarship
  • ‘The Passion’ gains popularity among Middle East’s Muslims, Christians
  • Moderate Muslim thinkers take new approach to modernity, Koran
  • Current Research: May 2004
  • Unitarians in the vanguard of new polygamy?
  • Praise music moves out of the churches
  • Mormon origins face scientific challenge
  • Alternatives to institutional religion find favor

Search the Site

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Download the first issue of RELIGION WATCH (1980)

Click on the image for downloading

© 2016-2020 Richard Cimino / Religioscope
·News Pro Theme · Genesis Framework by StudioPress · WordPress