There was, of course, no way that Ed Balls could have known what Reyaad Khan was going to do five years after he posed for a photo with him. The problem is that nothing effective is being done to prevent young Muslims from becoming “extremists.” As our AFDI ad points out, “Today’s moderate is tomorrow’s headline.” The ad has been condemned all over, with no thought given to the fact that some Muslims who have been assumed to be “moderate” have turned to jihad. This needs to be discussed in the public square, with consideration of strategies that could be employed to prevent it in genuinely effective ways. But that would be “Islamophobic.”
Contribute to this all-important ad campaign here. It is the only way we are going to have any public discussion of this crucial issue.
“Posing with Ed Balls, the teenager who just five years after being pictured with Labour MP turned into a notorious jihadist,” by Stephen Wright and Luke Salkeld, Daily Mail, October 17, 2014:
Hands in pockets and casually dressed, he looks like a typical teenager as he poses with Ed Balls when he was Labour Education Secretary.
Reyaad Khan, 15, was said to be thrilled when Mr Balls visited his youth club in Cardiff in July 2009 as the teenager had dreamed of becoming Britain’s first Asian prime minister. Khan also spoke of the need to rid the world of evil.
But, fast forward five years, and he has become a notorious jihadi terrorist.
Now 20, he is fighting for Islamic State in Syria and was featured in June with two other Britons in a propaganda video for the radicals.
He has since boasted of preparing for ‘martyrdom’ and also claimed he is planning on ‘fireworks’ – sparking fears that he could be part of a wave of suicide attacks against US interests in the north of the country.
The picture of him at the Riverside Warehouse youth club was still on the Shadow Chancellor’s Twitter feed this week.
Last night, Khan’s mother Rukia, 41, said of the visit: ‘My son came home and was excited and said he had met a Labour minister.’ Khan is thought to have left Cardiff last year.
His mother declined to say if he has been in touch since appearing in the IS video….
Jay Boo says
in another case
British mother tries to bring back son on jihad mission in Syria with coco pops cereal.
http://www.newsrt.co.uk/news/the-coco-pops-jihad-desperate-mum-goes-to-syria-to-lure-back-is-son-with-breakfast-cereal-2703321.html
Jen says
Hilarious. It’s a bit late to be dangling coco pops. She should have glued the pages of their Qur’an together when he was little and trying to read it.
gravenimage says
Aren’t Coco Pops Bi’da, and hence Haram?
Mirren10 says
I love one of the comments under the article:
”I hope this shyte goes snap, crackle and BOOM”
🙂
Saleem Smith says
Froot Loops with 2% milk still occasionally rock the house!
Cheers my friend.
pumbar says
Aren’t coco pops racist?
Jen says
I recognise that towel head from the video. I’m glad this photo exists. It shows a nice picture with a normal young person, all excited about his future and apparently eager to have positive impact on the world. Then BAM. Fast forward a few years and he’s featured in terrorist group propaganda, calling on his Muslim brothers and sisters to join him. All the opportunities he could have had were no match for the excitement of jihad.
Jen says
Here’s the ISIS propaganda video if anyone hasn’t seen it before. He’s the one wearing the loose fabric on his head.
William says
Referring to Reyaad Khan as a Briton distends and distorts the definition of a Briton a little, doesn’t it? Why would Stephen Wright and Luke Salkeld use that depiction I wonder?
Mirren10 says
*I* would like to know how many more of those ‘typical teenagers’ in the photo are also in Syria.
pumbar says
I wish Ed Balls was.
gravenimage says
UK: Labour official posed in photo with Muslim teen who joined Islamic State
As our AFDI ad points out, “Today’s moderate is tomorrow’s headline.”
…………………………….
So true—how many times has this happened now? Remember that Anwar al-Awlaki was hailed as the face of “moderate” Islam buy the US government at one time…
Ayatrollah says
Is anyone taking a few minutes to find out where this young man studied Islam? Maybe the ummah could design a program to stop guys like this.
Saleem Smith says
Will many “moderate” Muslims turn to jihad in the future?
Of course they will.
After all, they follow the same Qur’an and the same Islamic prophet.
We ex-Muslims know that the “perfect Koran” and “Moe’s Sunnah” are overflowing with evil madness far worse than a Halloween Pumpkin.
Qur’an 005 003
Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,
009:023
O you who have believed, do not take your fathers or your brothers as allies if they have preferred disbelief over belief. And whoever does so among you – then it is those who are the wrongdoers.
009:029
Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.
Hadith, Bukhari, Vol. 4, Book 52, No. 196:
Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah ‘s Apostle said, ” I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,’ and whoever says, ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah,’ his life and property will be saved by me except for Islamic law, and his accounts will be with Allah, (either to punish him or to forgive him.)”
http://quran.com/
Here is a recent statement from a group of Bangladeshi apostates living in the UK explaining the reasons why they have abandoned Islam:
“One who claims to be a messenger of God is expected to live a saintly life. He must not be given to lust, he must not be a sexual pervert, and he must not be a rapist, a highway robber, a war criminal, a mass murderer or an assassin. One who claims to be a messenger of God must have a superior character. He must stand above the vices of the people of his time. Yet Muhammad’s life is that of a gangster godfather. He raided merchant caravans, looted innocent people, massacred entire male populations and enslaved the women and children. He raped the women captured in war after killing their husbands and told his followers that it is okay to have sex with their captives (Qur’an 33:50). He assassinated those who criticized him and executed them when he came to power and became de facto despot of Arabia. Muhammad was bereft of human compassion. He was an obsessed man with his dreams of grandiosity and could not forgive those who stood in his way…
The statement continues,
Muhammad was a narcissist, like Hitler, Saddam or Stalin. He was astute and knew how to manipulate people, but his emotional intelligence was less evolved than that of a 6-year-old child. He simply could not feel the pain of others. He brutally massacred thousands of innocent people and pillaged their wealth. His ambitions were big and as a narcissist he honestly believed he is entitled to do as he pleased and commit all sorts of crimes and his evil deeds are justified.”
tpellow says
-Anothert example of the damage being done to the West’s civilization by the alliance of political ‘left’ + Islamic interests.