British Muslims blame ‘jihadi-cool’ subculture after Foley beheading video

A British Muslim leader is calling for action to tackle a jihadi sub-culture after an Islamic State video showed a suspected Briton beheading U.S. journalist James Foley in Syria. Iqbal Sacranie, an adviser to the Muslim Council of Britain, said Britons from across the country’s communities had to stop young men being seduced by radical ideologies. Sacranie said the Muslim community was pushing the message that “this is totally alien to Islam” and families were reporting to the authorities when they discovered their sons had headed to the Middle East to fight. He also told London’s Evening Standard newspaper that anyone who recognized the man in the video had a duty to contact police.

This sub culture of this ‘jihadi-cool’ - as they call it in the media - within the margins of society … that is the real challenge.

Iqbal Sacranie, adviser to the Muslim Council of Britain

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the threat from Islamic State was “beyond anything we’ve seen” and the U.S. Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the death of Foley on the video, which featured a masked man speaking English with a British accent. The Guardian newspaper said a former hostage had identified the masked man as the leader of three Britons who guarded foreign hostages in the city of Raqqa - Islamic State’s stronghold in eastern Syria. The BBC also reported that hostages had nicknamed their three captors John, Paul and Ringo, after members of the Beatles pop group. Ghaffar Hussain, managing director of the counter-extremism Quilliam Foundation, said it was almost inevitable that men who had fought in Syria would return to plan attacks in Europe.

It is disturbing that people born and raised in Britain and who have gone to the same schools as us could have been essentially indoctrinated to the extent where they can justify raping women and chopping heads off.

Ghaffar Hussain, managing director of the counter-extremism Quilliam Foundation