Muntasir, ‘recruiter’ of UK Jihadists sobs on TV documentary

 

Abu Muntasir in Deeyah Khan's television documentary: “If people want to call me a coward, fine – I’m a coward.”

‘Recruiter’ of UK Jihadists, Abu Muntasir stated on a TV documentary that he regretted opening the way to ISIS. Muntasir who sobbed on the documentary told of raising funds and recruiting fighters before turning his back on violence.

Violence knows no creed, religion or race. It spreads like wild fire and spares no one once it starts even the one that engineered it. No wonder nations of the world are doing all they can to quench the fire of terrorism ravaging most countries.

Unfortunately, the movement which Muntasir 55, resident of Suffolk, Uk helped to nurture has gone beyond his control. The radical Islamist who was active in the 1980s and 1990s helped to radicalise ‘thousands’ of young Muslims. He equally encouraged many to travel to fight in wars in Afghanistan, Burma, Bosnia, Kasmir and Chechnya.

According to The Guardian, UK, Muntasir, founder and Chief Executive of Jimas, said it was time for people who supported Islamist extremism to ask why their sons and daughters were blown up for false ideals in “unwinnable wars”. Hate, he said, is not what Islam or the prophet taught.

Muntasir admitted that he worked to “create the link and clear the paths. I came back [from war] and opened the door and the trickle turned to a flood. I inspired and recruited, I raised funds and bought weapons, not just a one-off but for 15 to 20 years. Why I have never been arrested I don’t know.”

The Guardian reported that he said it was not until he realised, while fighting in the jungles of Burma with armed resistance groups, that what was going on was not a holy war, but nothing less than the butchery and exploitation of young Muslims, that he turned his back on violence. “If people want to call me a coward, fine – I’m a coward.”

One of his former followers, Alyas Karmani, now a peace campaigner, youth worker and Imam in Bradford Uk, disclosed ‘it was a virus with which we infected a generation. Now it has proliferated’.

The world is in dire need of peace. Where do we go in search of it? Isn’t it better if we all gave peace a chance? 

It is important for young people to know they can’t change the world overnight. They should stop the anger and violence and embrace peace because it is the right way to go. Maybe this time around, it’d be Youths Earnestly Ask for Peace. How about that?

  

(Photo credit: ITV)