Did time in London radicalize Abdulmutallab?
See full-text article(s):The Christian Science Monitor Telegraph The New York Times News Agencies – December 26, 2009 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent 2005-08 living in a 3-bedroom apartment in London’s West End as an engineering and business finance student at University College London. Experts wonder whether those years, characterized by anger over the Iraq War and the 2005 London subway/bus bombing, could have played a role in radicalizing Abdulmutallab. While London is an exciting city for Muslims from other countries with its higher education options, jobs, and distance from family home, it is also described by Mamoun Fandy, International Institute for Strategic Studies as “a mecca of jihad.” The years Abdulmutallab spent there saw a spike in the spread of radical Islamic ideas. Today, Muslims still have access to many different interpretations of Islam in London, including “intense Koranic views.” “I’ve felt for a long time that if radical Sharia law comes to the rest of the world
