“It is clear that he had been radicalised by Isis propaganda accessed by him over the internet.” How clear is it, really? How long are Western authorities going to persist in this delusion without ever asking themselves why the moderate, peaceful Muslim that they assume prevails in their countries is completely unable to withstand the appeal of what they firmly believe is a twisted, hijacked version of the religion? If this boy and so many others like him learned the true, peaceful Islam in their homes and their mosques, why did they so easily fall for this counterfeit Islam they found on the Internet? Why have 30,000 Muslims from 100 countries traveled to join the Islamic State? Why are imams worldwide so spectacularly failing to communicate the true peaceful nature of their religion to their own young people?
The cognitive dissonance is enormous, and growing by the day, but no one seems to notice or care.
“Baby-faced British terrorist, 14, who plotted from his parents’ suburban Blackburn home to kill police at an Anzac Day parade had an Isis phone screensaver and warned a teacher: ‘You’re on my beheading list,'” by Lucy Crossley, MailOnline, October 1, 2015:
A baby-faced British schoolboy who plotted to kill Australian police in an Anzac Day terror attack from his parents suburban home warned a teacher, ‘You are on my beheading list’, a court heard today.
From his bedroom in Blackburn, Lancashire, the 14-year-old, who had been radicalised by Islamic State propaganda online, urged Australian Sevdet Besim, 18, to behead police officers at an Anzac Day parade in Melbourne.
Manchester Crown Court was told today that the attack would ‘in all probability’ have resulted in a number of deaths if it was not thwarted.
As they discussed their plans for the attack, the boy – who was acting in the role of ‘organiser’ – encouraged Besim to break into the home of a vulnerable person living alone, to get his ‘first taste of beheading’ and told him to make a martyrdom video, the court heard.
He told Besim he could either attack police with a gun, a car or a knife and advised him to kill an officer by running them over before beheading the victim and moving onto the next target.
As well as the Australia plot, the schoolboy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been researching potential targets in Britain and teaching himself how to detonate devices and explosives. On his hit list were a police station and a town hall as well as defence and aerospace firm BAE Systems.
He also showed gory videos of bloodied bodies in school, told a teacher he was ‘on his beheading list’ ahead of another member of staff, and had an Isis flag as his mobile phone screensaver, the court heard.
The boy, now 15, became Britain’s youngest convicted Islamic terrorist in July after he admitted inciting terrorism overseas, and is being sentenced in Manchester this week.
Outlining the case at the start of the two-day sentencing hearing, prosecutor Paul Greaney QC said the boy’s plot with Besim, who is thought to have used an online pseudonym ‘Illyas’, had the aim of beheading police officers.
‘It is clear that the purpose of this proposed attack was to promote the ideology and agenda of Isis,’ said Mr Greaney. ‘A striking feature of the case is that, at the time of the offence, the defendant was aged just 14.
‘It is clear that he had been radicalised by Isis propaganda accessed by him over the internet and the evidence establishes that the contact with his Australian collaborator was instigated by a well-known Isis recruiter and propagandist named Abu Khaled al-Cambodi, himself an Australian, who has promoted the idea of terrorist attacks in his homeland.
‘There is no doubt that there was a determination on the part of the defendant and Sevdet Besim that the plot should be carried through and the contact between the two included frequent references to the production of a martyrdom video by Besim for al-Cambodi which, no doubt, al-Cambodi intended to use for propaganda purposes.
‘In the event, fortunately, the authorities here and in Australia intervened and a plot that would in all probability have resulted in a number of deaths was thwarted.’ …