UK shopping centre was “just hours away” from a major jihad terrorist homicide bombing

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Another day, another atrocity narrowly averted.

Yet another young man converted to Islam and then decided to attempt mass murder.

There are also a couple of other familiar features in the way this story is reported.

In addition to there being no mention of Andrew Ibrahim’s mosque, we are told that Ibrahim “spent hours online researching figures such as Osama bin Laden and radical cleric Abu Hamza, as well as the July 7th London suicide bombers and Iraqi insurgents.”

From this, one might get the impression that the Internet “radicalized” him, but, as we know, almost all jihadists were radicalized by a person:

“The internet has not been shown to be an actual instigator of radicalization in 99% of the jihadist biographies. To be sure, the internet acts as an accelerator of the process of radicalization in the sense that it makes necessary information (ie technical information) accessible to those who have decided for jihad. However, the internet alone does not provide the defining moment. An individual does not become an attacker simply because he sits in front of his computer and watches how a bomb is constructed. In almost every case of jihadist attacks, there are detectable contacts to a group and/or a spiritual leader or leading operational figure that were more important than internet use.”

“Political Islam: When Faith Turns Out to Be Politics” by Christine Schirrmacher

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Who that person may be in this case seems to be a question that was never asked.

Then there is the claim that:

“The importance of the information provided to us by the community, particularly in terrorism-related cases, cannot be understated.”

One might get the false impression that Muslims play a decisive role in terrorism-related cases. The truth is that Muslims are all too often told by groups such as the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) not to cooperate with law enforcement; as a result, violent Muslims hide among the peaceful Muslims. This is precisely the problem we face (or refuse to face) as a society.

And so another life is destroyed by a growing, pernicious ideology, and this is reported to us as a feelgood story about Muslims protecting us from the radicals in their midst, and the danger of the Internet.

“Police: Bristol Was ‘Hours Away’ from Islamist Suicide Attack,” by Liam Deacon, Breitbart, March 15, 2017:

A Bristol shopping centre was “just hours away” from a major terrorist suicide bombing, police have revealed.

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There was “no doubt about it that an atrocity would have taken place” if police did not intervene and arrested 19-year-old Andrew Ibrahim in 2008, Detective Chief Inspector Matt Iddon said.

In an interview with ITV West Country, the detective explained: “Ibrahim was within a couple of hours of being able to put the suicide note together, to wrap the shrapnel around the explosive and then go to the shopping centre and conduct the attack he had prepared.

“Had it not been for that one call from that member of the Bristol Muslim community, I have no doubt that an atrocity would have taken place.”

Mr. Ibrahim was a convert to radical Islam who was born to a Christian Egyptian father and an English mother.

During his trial in 2009, the prosecution claimed he spent hours online researching figures such as Osama bin Laden and radical cleric Abu Hamza, as well as the July 7th London suicide bombers and Iraqi insurgents.

He was jailed for a minimum of ten years.

Deceive Iddon explained the case shows how the public should alert the police of any suspicious behaviour.

He said: “Without that call from a member of the mosque Ibrahim attended the outcome would most likely have been entirely different.

“Ibrahim intended to carry out explosions which would have led to mass fatalities, so that single phone call undoubtedly saved many lives.”…