GENERATION OF JIHADI LOSERS
Resentful and filled with fury, terrorists blame the West for their failures
Westminster terror killer Khalid Masood came from a new generation of jihadi losers who blame the West for their own failures, a terrorism expert has claimed.
Award- winning f ilmmaker and writer Kevin Toolis said divorced, jailed Masood’s resentment at being a “social failure” would have turned into blind rage.
Masood claimed four lives by mowing down innocent passers- by on Westminster Bridge at 70mph before stabbing PC Keith Palmer to death in London on Wednesday.
Edinburgh-born Toolis, director of Channel 4’s The Cult Of The Suicide Bomber, has spent years interviewing terrorists, imams and spies.
He said: “Masood must have known he would almost certainly die in his attack. It takes a lot of willpower to kill yourself and the real motivating force is never the 72 fabled virgins but resentment at being a perceived social failure in British society.
“There is almost always a fracture of some kind in a would- be jihadi ’ s personal life–a disabled father, a shaming divorce, petty criminal convictions, a broken marriage, all of which makes them vulnerable to the allure of the absolute ideological certainty of radical Islam. “What begins as resentment blossoms into blind rage.”
Masood, born in Dartwood, Kent, was twice jailed for violent crimes. He was given a two-year sentence for a knife attack in 2000 on a man in a pub car park, leaving his victim with a scar across his face.
Masood, 52, was divorced after his marriage to Farzana Isaq, 14 years his junior, lasted just three months. She ran away to escape his threats.
After the divorce, he travelled to Saudi Arabia where he worked as an English teacher. It has been suggested this may have led to his radicalisation. Masood taught English in Saudi Arabia from November 2005 to November 2006 and again from
April 2008 to April 2009, with a valid work visa both times. He then returned for six days in March 2015 on a trip booked through an approved travel agent and made on an Umra visa, usually granted to those on a religious pilgrimage to the country’s holy sites.
The Saudi embassy said their security services did not track Masood and he did not have a criminal record there.
Toolis said: “Masood’s transitory lifestyle, in and out of prison, frequent moves to different parts of the UK, stints of employment abroad in Saudi Arabia, estrangement from his birth mother, broken work record and failed marital relationship are all hallmarks of an unstable, potential ly vulnerable individual.”
Toolis, who produced the Baftawinning film Complicit about an MI5 agent trying to prevent a terrorist atrocity on British soil, said 52-year-old Masood was, however, unique in his age in terms of a typical jihadi profile.
He said: “The propensity to commit violent crime lessens in the mid- 40s as the demands of family and children inhibit reckless behaviour. By 50, even career criminals mature out and shy away from serious crime. For whatever
There is almost always some fracture in a would-be jihadi’s personal life
reason, Masood’s path to paradise and wholesale murder, began with a rejection of the values of l iberal British culture.
“Just being a Muslim convert was not enough. Figures like Masood adopt Islamic dress and create a new wholly allegedly pious Muslim identity for themselves.
“They take their inspiration, and interpretation of the Koran, from radical charismatic preachers like Omar Bakri Mohammed – expelled from Britain in 2005 but whose teachings are widely available on the internet. They even fanatically claim that one day Britain will become an Islamic state like Saudi Arabia.”
He added: “Their new Islamist identity also absolves them of any responsibility for their personal failures. Everything they see on the TV is a confirming instance of ‘ Western crusader’ oppression and anti-Muslim bias.
“They effectively withdraw from society into like- minded Islamist networks of simi lar radical ised individuals who echo back and normalise their extremist views.
“In their minds, they have already become waiting ‘Soldiers of the Islamic State’, tasked with fighting back on behalf of the oppressed Muslims of the world.
“The cruelty, the appalling savagery, of Islamic State’s gory videos may also desensitise them to the nihilistic nature of the violence they seek to perpetrate. And then one day they decide to go out to kill and die for their warped cause.”
Toolis insisted strong surveillance is needed to stop terrorists.
He said: “Stopping further attacks is not going to be easy. The only real way to stop the next Masood is to have spies and informers within every suspect British mosque.
“You need to spy on every radical Islamist network, listen in secretly on every incriminating phone call and never hesitate to arrest even those you only suspect of planning an attack.
“The price of defending liberty against deranged men like Masood is eternal vigilance.”