The idea that poverty and ignorance cause terrorism has led the U.S. to shower billions on Muslim countries, hoping to win hearts and minds and alleviate what mainstream analysts doggedly believe are the root causes of terrorism. But it has been known for years that poverty doesn’t really cause terrorism at all. The Economist reported in 2010:
Social scientists have collected a large amount of data on the socioeconomic background of terrorists. According to a 2008 survey of such studies by Alan Krueger of Princeton University, they have found little evidence that the typical terrorist is unusually poor or badly schooled.
In the same vein, CNS News noted in September 2013:
According to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, “Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.” One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, “Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.”
The Times Online reported the following as far back as April 2005:
Three-quarters of the Al-Qaeda members were from upper middle-class homes and many were married with children; 60% were college educated, often in Europe or the United States.
Islamic State recruits have been found to be above average in education.
Notice how the Mail, the worst paper in the Western world, truncates his quote. He actually said: “I was not a loser before I came to Syria. I made more money in a day than most of you make in a month, praise be to God. I had a Porsche, I was doing very well in my life. I was looking forward to saving up to buy a villa and a Lamborghini. But God made me leave all this rubbish behind and come to Syria for the afterlife.”
But the Mail quotes this as “I was not a loser… I had a Porsche, I was doing very well in my life… I was looking forward to saving up to buy a villa and a Lamborghini.”
Then this head-bangingly witless paper says: “It is unclear just what prompted him to give up his successful life.” Yes it is. It’s perfectly clear. He went to Syria for Allah and the afterlife. He went to Syria for Islam. You just left it out of your quotation, and then claim that his motive was unclear. Would telling the truth about this be “Islamophobic,” Mail editors?
“Porsche driving British barrister killing for ISIS complains about air strikes as he hides out with his wife and toddler son in the ruined Syrian city of Raqqa,” by Omar Wahid and Ross Slater, The Mail On Sunday, October 8, 2017 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):
A British Islamic State fanatic who has spent two years fighting in the Syrian city of Raqqa is a former Porsche-driving barrister, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Abu Adam Al-Britani described last week how the ISIS stronghold – the scene of some of the terror group’s most appalling atrocities – had been ‘obliterated’ in coalition air strikes and said US-backed forces were now closing in on him and his fellow militants.
In a pitiful 72-minute rant, he said life was so bleak that stray cats and dogs had become fat by feasting on ‘dead human flesh’.
The terrorist gave few clues to his real identity on the tape, posted on encrypted messaging app Telegram, which ISIS uses to spread propaganda.
But The Mail on Sunday has learned he is 39-year-old Yaser Iqbal, a married lawyer from Birmingham who, before moving to Syria, boasted he earned more in a day than most do in a month.
In the recording Iqbal emphasised his story does not conform to the jihadi stereotype, saying of his old life: ‘I was not a loser… I had a Porsche, I was doing very well in my life… I was looking forward to saving up to buy a villa and a Lamborghini.’
After practising as a barrister in London he became a solicitor specialising in immigration, and ran a succession of firms, including one in Harrow, North West London.
It is unclear just what prompted him to give up his successful life, though he said he came to regard his UK existence as ‘rubbish’. He criticises Western culture, describing Britain as ‘a country of dogs’.
In 2010, Iqbal was one of 24 prominent Muslims who contributed to a book called ‘7/7 Muslim Perspectives’ in which they reflected on the carnage caused by the London suicide bombers five years earlier.
Described as a barrister in Birmingham, he wrote: ‘I am not pointing towards some conspiracy theory but what I am presenting is my view that the explanation as to the real perpetrators of 7/7 is not as simple as most people are led to believe.’
Neighbours in Birmingham said last night that Iqbal, who has a conviction for drink driving, encouraged his former friends to ‘join him in jihad’.
However before he quit Britain four years ago, initially for Saudi Arabia, he was held in high regard in his neighbourhood. Locals described him in glowing terms.
For some he had been the man to help resolve their immigration issues and for many he was a shining example of what was possible in British society.
One neighbour said: ‘He’s a lovely man and very humble. He would always be willing to help you with advice. He is not lying when he says he earned more in a day than many do in a month and he drove a silver Porsche. It was a Boxster.’…
manat bint allaha says
well, he can only hope there’s a porsche dealership in allah’s heaven.
manat bint allaha says
..or was it a bordello?
something with 72 virgins..
Dave says
Hope he dies soon. when saudi/qatar funds are involved even politicians will fall over each other to hide facts/play down his links to jihadi organisation.
Dems have sold themselves to iranian Lobby to pass the nuke deal http://tinyurl.com/mcake4d
saudi/qatari pay both sides.
Chand says
Only donkeys and camels there! Bye bye Iqbal. ………..and sorry, no 72 virgins there either. Muhammad had just made up this carrot.
Skeptic Sam says
He is looking for an after life but he is going to be disappointed.
Bindon Blood says
If there isn’t they can make one up; they have made up everything else in Jihad heaven
Jayell says
He ‘earned’ more in a day than many do in a month, working in immigration, with all the shady dealing that goes on in that area? ‘Raked it in’ for sure. ‘Earned’ is debatable. As for “he said he came to regard his UK existence as ‘rubbish’”, the feeling’s mutual.
“He criticises Western culture, describing Britain as ‘a country of dogs’….” Right. We respect our friends in the animal kingdom, which the specimen featured here probably doesn’t. In fact one wonders if he understands the word ‘respect’.
I think the phrase ‘good riddance’ is relevant here.
Jack Diamond says
Ah, but he was “a lovely man and very humble”…. poverty schmoverty, watch out for lovely Muslims!
(the so-called “jihadi stereotype” only exists at places like the Daily Mail, everyone else knows better).
Do you think if he survives (and foregoes the afterlife) he’ll be back in practice in Britain, after humbly admitting he made a “mistake” of course? After all, he has so many Brits willing to act as character witnesses.
Poor “pitiful” Abu Babu Britani, eaten by dogs (after leaving a “country of dogs”). Dogs 1, Allah 0
Hector Archytas says
The brother of Shadiq Khan.
Linde Barrera says
To Jayell- I was thinking of the song “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen to be appropriate here. ?
gravenimage says
+1
religionofpeace says
Lefties are trying to spin that Osama bin Laden were a poor man, despite he came from a rich family.
Bindon Blood says
He was a millionaire. All his family are.
Walter Sieruk says
This jihadist is yet more proof and another example of how education is not the answer to the problem and plague of Islamic terrorism. One time a sincere Christian man said to me about the violent and dangerous jihadist /Muslims that “They need an education.” The reality is that no amount of collage will cure them of the violent jihad mindset or keep any Muslims from embracing the militant jihad and joining one of its many Islamic terror groups. So that Muslims need in not really a collage education but another religion. Better yet they need the Person Who is none other than the Jesus of the Bible and not any Islamic “jesus” of the Quran. Therefore, therefore to reply to the many different claims made by the imams and mullahs as well as the other apologists for Islam there is the Christian internet site http://www.answering-islam.org
PRCS says
I imagine that many followers of the world’s many other religions (Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, etc.) would disagree with you.
Johnny Cuyana says
PRCS, Walter meant well, but, he missed the critical mark. That mark is: regardless of one’s level of education, the student with a “broken moral compass” will come to no good. There were, throughout human history, many infamous individuals who were well educated; however, the magnitude of their good or evil was correlated much more closely to their moral orientation.
Many “believers” who profess to be followers of Christ — Christians, at least, in their self-characterization — do so as a mask; where, in actual fact, those who are so-fallen, are so because they have rejected the true teachings of Christ; where, his primary message was/is: to love thy neighbor as you would love yourself; where, even in his death by crucifixion, his last words were for his Father to forgive “them” because these killers did not understand what they were doing.
So, even after the cows come home, one can continue to call oneself a Christian; however, it means naught if one does not practice — perhaps, because of one’s moral shortcomings — Jesus’ true message. Agents of the Spanish Inquisition, e.g., called themselves Christians; however, in truth, for the mentioned reason, they were NOT Christians; rather, they were fallen individuals; a result of their own vanity.
The same can NOT be said about the false, evil prophet muhammed: by their own writings — the hadith — he was a monster warlord, murderer, enslaver, torturer, rapist, misogynist, pedophile and etc; where, nonetheless, fundamental death cult muhammedans BELIEVE him to be the PERFECT man, to be emulated in all ways. Until this anti-human evil ideology is reconciled with the morality of the pro-humanity world, there will remain, between these cultures, a destructive human conflict.
[Regarding any other religions, which, at a minimum, fairly and equally respect the human rights of all — some of which you may have referenced — I cannot comment.]
PRCS says
The article’s coauthors–Omar Wahid and Ross Slater–make both their ignorance of the issue and the Daily Mail’s journalistic standards clear before completing the first sentence:
“A British Islamic State fanatic.”
gravenimage says
I would not assume that Omar Wahid is ignorant–more likely practicing Taqiyya.
PRCS says
Perhaps. But…his coauthor?
gravenimage says
I have found that a lot of these “reporter teams” where one is Muslim and the other native Infidel, that the Muslim provides the slant and the Infidel cleans up the often illiterate text.
Ross Slater likely knows nothing about Islam at all. I’ve checked his byline and none of his listed stories are about Islam or Muslims.
Matamoros says
Well, i do not know if his Story is true or just some “I have everything but my love to Allah is greater” crap.
What i do know, after growing up in a neighborhood full of those fine and intelligent gentlemen, he went there so finally he gets some Pu**y.
He wants to rape and own Women the way he could not with Money.
Now he is going for the possibility his culture and religion gives him.
Believe me, all they think about the whole day, everyday is fu**ing.
Jack Diamond says
Yep. Muhammad knew how to recruit for Allah’s cause. Not just for himself those young, beautiful widows (that he made widows). He provided his soldiers with sex slaves, “right hand possessions.”
The life promised in janna could be had here and now. And made sacred at the same time!
Worship Allah with rape and murder. Believe it or not, it was a popular strategy with the guys back in the day. It still is.
Bindon Blood says
It just proves that you can take the man out of Islam but cannot take Islam out of the man. These so called Westernised Muslims can revert to type at any time.
underbed cat says
Suicide is always denied, forbidden, with many verses found in the Quran that are to confuse the non-believer that some one who is identified as muslim, dies while attacking a bus and kill persons on the bus is certainly going against his religion. But a martyr is one who may die as he fights against people who are resistant to Islam is allowed to protect the doctrine of Islam and found in the Quran and is legal according to sharia law. So there are many ways to confuse non-believers especially if they can write a book about the carnage of 7/7 to those who do not know the terms and the application of meaning. So deception in many forms is very clever and the doctrine is getting more and more protection by those screaming that people who know the doctrine are racist islamophobes and is working hard to criminalize facts and speech regarding the deception. Very clever and dangerous for Christians, Jews ,Atheists
to unknowingly support the silencing of any factual analysis or criticism of any religions’s doctrine information at this point. And as I deduct this article also portrays, some muslims maybe getting rich sending other muslims to non muslim countries as refugees a religious obligation, called hijra, countries to convert or fight for allah eventually and are willing to give it up in the end and most have no clue. Could be in my opinion.
Santa Voorhees says
There is just one thing to do. Do not allow him to return!
gravenimage says
*Yes*.
PRCS says
So long as his pals in GB are able to whisper in Sharia May’s ear…
John Forbes says
TERESA & RUDD & PRINCE CHARLES – what an advertisement for SHARIA COMPLIANCE !
Then there is CORBYN the protector of the Pakistani Child Rapists in Rotherham & Blair & others who covered this up for 2 decades !
Now with a MUSLIM CHILD RAPING EPIDEMIC it is rather harder to hide !!
There are this lot – starting with good educations & good jobs who become Jihadists & PLOT against British Democracy & then there are the LOCAL educated Jihadists – also university educated – with Government Grants – who blow themselves & children at Concerts !
YET despite all of the evidence the WEST STILL PARROTS : ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE & VIOLENCE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM !
THEN WE HAVE THE LEFTISTS STILL QUOTING – MENTAL ILLNESS !
WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR THE WEST TO REALIZE THAT OUR SOCIETY & WE ARE HATED ??
LINDA SARSOUR IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF HOW MUCH WE ARE HATED – AS IS ANJEM CHOUDRY ALONG WITH OTHERS !
WE & OUR WAY OF LIFE & THE CHOICES WE & OUR PEOPLE HAVE ARE HATED BY MEMBERS OF THIS IDEOLOGY – ISLAM !!
I wonder about leftists says
Underbid cat, you are so right, that is why they are so secret and dangerous !!!
Ren says
Muslim paradise is much better than driving a Porsche!
Carlos Danger says
Let’s hope that everyone seeking that “paradise” finds it soon.
mummymovie says
The media continues to push this as a truism, still, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.
On a related note, let’s not forget the other thing that seems to perpetually mystify them: that often the (usually male) jihadis were out at nightclubs (sometimes gay clubs and/or having romantic involvement with other men) or casinos not long before they committed their respective atrocities… or maybe they never went to the mosque, therefore how could their acts possibly be tied to islamic jihad terrorism?
Robert has discussed this before (and it was always pretty obvious to me that this is what was going on):
Good ol’ REDEMPTIVE JIHAD:
A pretty simple concept really- These guys go out and screw the pooch for varying amounts of time (sometimes the majority of their lives) then turn over a new leaf or come back to the mosque once or twice, dawn some traditional garb for a week or two, and set out to murder and maim for allah, with the expectation of being shot straight to their pedophilic paradise.
There is a passage in the koran about this… forgive me for not remembering the exact one.
gravenimage says
Good post.
gravenimage says
UK: Rich, Porsche-driving Muslim barrister gives it all up to join the Islamic State in Syria
……………………………….
I’m sure most considered Yaser Iqbal to be about as integrated into British society as possible. This did not stop him from becoming a Jihadist, nor from despising the nation that made his success possible.
More:
After practising as a barrister in London he became a solicitor specialising in immigration…
……………………………….
Oh, great–so he was likely enabling his coreligionists to flood into Britain. What could possibly go wrong with that? sarc/off
More:
In 2010, Iqbal was one of 24 prominent Muslims who contributed to a book called ‘7/7 Muslim Perspectives’ in which they reflected on the carnage caused by the London suicide bombers five years earlier.
Described as a barrister in Birmingham, he wrote: ‘I am not pointing towards some conspiracy theory but what I am presenting is my view that the explanation as to the real perpetrators of 7/7 is not as simple as most people are led to believe.’
……………………………….
That sounds–superficially–as though Iqbal was saying that he doubted that this was Jihad. Or perhaps he was already expressing sympathy for Jihad terrorism…
More:
Neighbours in Birmingham said last night that Iqbal, who has a conviction for drink driving, encouraged his former friends to ‘join him in jihad’.
……………………………….
So often clueless Infidels think that if a Muslim drinks, that he must have rejected all of the diktats of Islam. More proof that this is anything but the case.
The next, unasked question, is this–will Yaser Iqbal and his family try to return to Britain? And will the UK be insane enough to allow him back in?
Jack Diamond says
He was implying the Joos were behind 7/7 or it was a legitimate response to our “bombing innocent Muslims” “raping Muslim women” and “occupying Muslim lands”…. Of course, the UK will let him back. He was a lovely man and very humble. He just got misled. The deprogramming department just needs to council him.
don vito says
Living the afterlife in Syria? The afterlife…..in Syria? Who would have known?
Shazza says
‘I was not a loser before I came to Syria.’
His first sentence implies that he thinks he’s a loser now that he is in Syria.
MFritz says
Good riddance! And don’t let him back in once he changes his mind!
David says
The Porsche wouldn’t do well in the sand and only one or two virgins would be able to fit in. Such is life and otherwise.
ConcernedCareBear says
Lol Porsche Boxster. Basically says “ya, I wish I was rich enough for a real Porsche.” Then bragging to people how he is a lawyer and makes more in one day than most people do in a month. What a piece of shit.
I hope he gets captured alive by the Iraqis and spends the rest of his life in an over crowded roach infested prison cell.
But chances are, the traitors in parliament will let him back in. He’ll be able to go back to his nice former life, drive his shitty Porsche and groom young white british girls.
James Stamulis says
Poverty doesn’t cause terrorism inbreeding does. I hope he enjoys dying for his Islam!
gravenimage says
It is no coincidence that Muslim nations–unless flush with unearned oil wealth–are economic basket cases.
Keith Jordan says
I think what we are really fighting is the sex drive, which leads Muslim men to want nothing more than the 72 virgins, and it overcomes common sense.
gravenimage says
The idea that every male wants to rape large numbers of unbelieving women is just false. This is what Islam teaches–not something intrinsic to all males.
FYI says
Of course no amount of skill in legal matters will save the muslim from Almighty God’s Judgement.
He may have imagined that allah( or his angelic messenger jibreel) called him to Syria to suffer (the painful) afterlife that awaits those who choose the path of the sword.
{“If you live by the sword,you will die by the sword”
Matthew 26 v 52}
“you WILL DIE by the sword” .
This is always true:you reap what you sow.
But alas such divine wisdom is lost on the muslim!
martin says
It sickens me that muslims insist on calling satan god.
alex says
I just hope that this lunatic does not get back to Britain, neither him nor his wife and offspring.