“Recruiters for hard-line Islamist groups can turn Muslim youths with little interest in religion into extremists in a matter of weeks.” And how do they do it? By appealing to the Qur’an and Sunnah.
From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:
PARIS (AP)–Recruiters for hard-line Islamist groups can turn Muslim youths with little interest in religion into extremists in a matter of weeks, the head of France’s counterterrorism agency said in an interview published Friday.
A year after suicide bombers launched attacks on London’s transit system, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian told the daily Le Parisien he could “not rule out” the possibility of a terrorist attack in France.
The fact that there have not been any attacks in Europe since last year’s bombings on the London transit system “does not mean there haven’t been any plans,” he said.
“We have – like our British and Italian colleagues – neutralized groups that could have taken action,” Bousquet de Florian said, adding authorities dismantled “several groups” in the Paris region and in the south of France in late 2005 and earlier this year.
Bousquet de Florian said one potential threat comes from volunteers who pass through Syria to fight in Iraq but are returned to Europe “to carry out the jihad according to one of the strategies developed by (Abu Mussab) al-Zarqawi,” the head of al-Qaida in Iraq who was killed in June.