UK Muslims seek own path in countering jihadism

Feeling unfairly targeted by the government’s anti-radicalisation drive, Britain’s Muslim community is rallying to find its own response to extremism and take a greater role in the fight against terrorism. The Muslim Council of Britain has planned a series of conferences around the country where community leaders, activists and others will speak out against jihadist ideology, but also government security measures they say alienates Muslims. “We do know that for any policy to succeed it needs to involve Muslim communities as part of the solution and not only as part of the problem,” said MCB secretary general Shuja Shafi at the first of a series of conferences in London this week. The initiative comes as concerns mount over the number of Britons heeding calls by the Islamic State (IS) group and other extremists to launch attacks domestically or fight abroad. IS has been blamed for a string of outrages, including coordinated attacks in Paris Friday that left 129 dead and more than 350 wounded. Mohammed Emwazi, a British militant known as “Jihadi John”, became the poster-child for IS after he appeared in propaganda videos depicting the executions of Western hostages. Emwazi, who the US military said was likely killed in an air strike in Syria on Thursday, and other jihadists who have conducted grisly attacks in recent years have cast a pall over ties between Britain’s Muslims and wider society. “We feel like many in our community do, that for too long terrorism has cast a long dark shadow on our community,” said Shafi. The government has repeatedly called on Muslim civil society to help counter the lure of jihadist ideology, but such measures have been poorly received. A January letter to imams inviting them to “explain and demonstrate how faith in Islam can be part of the British identity” was criticised as implying that Muslims were not part of British society.