More on this story. “Britain’s youngest teenage terrorist: ‘a wake-up call for parents,'” by Caroline Gammell for Telegraph, September 19:
Speaking after the sentencing of Britain’s youngest terrorist, Shahid Malik, the minister for International Development, said parents had to be vigilant against the threat of radicalisation.
He also called on mosques to do more to combat fundamentalism.
The MP spoke out after the sentencing of Hammad Munshi who was just 15 when he was recruited by a terror cell believed to have been plotting against the Royal Family.
The teenager, from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, had downloaded information about bomb-making material from the internet and hidden notes about martyrdom under his bed.
The judge at the Old Bailey said the schoolboy’s head had been filled with “pernicious and warped ideas” which led to his involvement in a plan to kill kuffars or non-believers.
Munshi’s local MP Mr Malik said: “It is a real wake-up call for parents because there is a real need to be vigilant, especially when their kids are on the internet.
“It is a real wake-up call to how older jihadists can prey on vulnerable young people.
“Mosques have done a lot but they need to do more in terms of telling young people what is acceptable and what is not in Islam.”
Indeed, it seems that “mosques have done a lot” precisely because they do tell “young people what is acceptable and what is not in Islam.” Acceptable: jihad to make Islam supreme and the subjugation of all non-Muslims; Unacceptable: friendship or loyalty to non-Muslims. And so forth.
Munshi, who is the grandson of a senior Islamic sharia judge, was groomed by terrorist Aabid Hussain Khan, 23, who was jailed last month alongside postman Sultan Muhammed, 23, both from Bradford.
[…]
Sentencing him to two years in a young offenders’ institution, Judge Timothy Pontius said Khan and others had taken advantage of Munshi’s youth.
“It is regrettable and tragic that you find yourself in court on such a serious charge,” he said. “You have brought very great shame upon yourself, your family and your religion.
“In the light of the evidence, I have no doubt that you, amongst others of similar immaturity and vulnerability, fell under the spell of fanatical extremists.
“They took advantage of your youthful naivety in order to indoctrinate you with pernicious and warped ideas masquerading as altruistic religious zeal.
“Were it not for Aabid Khan’s malign influence I doubt whether this offence would ever have been committed. Yet there is no doubt that you knew what you were doing.”…