Why Britain tops US as terror breeding ground: Muslims less integrated in Europe

President Barack Obama hosts an iftar dinner, the meal that breaks the fast for Muslims during Ramadan, in the White House in 2010. Source: AP

Tom Coghlan and Will Pavia
Saturday, August 23, 2014

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Americans responded to the killing of James Foley with outrage, horror and confusion — and perhaps no one more so than American Muslims.

America’s 2.7 million Muslims tend to be more wealthy, well-educated and integrated than their European counterparts.

Surveys have found them to be more optimistic about the future of the US than their fellow Americans.

A handful are said to have travelled to Syria to join rebel groups, and members of the US’s Somali community are known to have joined al-Shabaab. Britain is among the leading European sources of foreign fighters for the Islamic State, though France has a larger number overall and Belgium the highest proportional representation.

Analysts said a sense of alienation, economic hardship and largely self-contained, conservative communities, fuelled an interest in jihad for some young Britons.

Many of Britain’s Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities come from two small towns — Sylhet in northern Bangladesh and Mirpur in Pakistani Kashmir. Both were conservative communities when thousands of inhabitants migrated to Britain.

“Talking about Mirpur, the community was transported wholesale to Bradford and other northern towns,” said Usama Hasan, a former jihadist who is now working for the counter-radicalisation think-tank Quilliam.

“They went from rural to urban, east to west, from totally Muslim to a predominantly non-Muslim environment. Any one of those would cause serious tensions but they got the triple whammy.”

Failure to integrate was the main reason Europe was producing far more jihadists than did the US, Dr Hasan said.

John Esposito, a professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC, said the Muslims who began arriving in the US in the 20th century tended to be educated and middle class.

Professor Esposito said “as a religious community they are second only to America’s Jews in terms of education level’’.

“Even during the downturn, they were more optimistic about the next five years in America than the average American,” he said.

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