Europe jihadist push goes underground
February 19, 2009 by SAF Desk
Filed under News at a glance
William Maclean
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Prisons and private homes have taken over from mosques as recruiting hubs for Islamist radicals in Europe, a shift that cannot be tackled simply by short-term government security measures, an academic said on Wednesday.
Under pressure from state surveillance and disapproval from local communities, activists who once trawled high-profile mosques for recruits increasingly use more discreet venues including makeshift prayer halls and bookshops, said Peter Neumann, a political scientist at Kings College, London. “This pattern of withdrawal from open agitation is consistent across Western Europe,” said Neumann, author of “Joining al Qaeda,” a report on radicalisation in Europe published by an independent British-based think-tank.
“A lot of open activities that used to go on at mosques are now taking place in private flats and apartments, as mosques themselves become more vigilant and clamp down,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of a security conference in Belgium.
“It’s been driven underground. It’s much more difficult for people like Abu Hamza to be operating out in the open, although it doesn’t mean they have gone away,” he told Reuters.
He was referring to Abu Hamza al-Masri, a firebrand Muslim preacher who acted as a magnet for radicals drawn to his mosque in north London in the 1990s, an easy surveillance target for police watching out for such activities.