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AbdulMutallab, Caring, talented student2)
Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab: From London student to Jihadist3)
Was Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab radicalized in London?According to Edmunds, now an educational adviser in Abu Dhabi, the would-be bomber “embodied hope for the future.”
”AbdulMuttalab was developing an international mind and an international heart. He was... maturing into a confident, articulate, compassionate, caring and responsible young man,” he said.
He recalled that AbdulMuttalab took part in a school ceremony, a day after the devastating September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States. “The hastily arranged school assembly on September 12 was poignant and emotional. Muslim, Christian and other community leaders shared a platform. We prayed and wept together,” Edmunds said.
People like to think of criminals as 1-Dimensional "Bad Guys", but I'm going to go out on a limb and attempt to empathize with young Abdul Mutallab, and present a theory on what led him to his actions.
He was a young Nigerian student, graduate of a top prep school in Africa, who was sent far away from his family, friends, and home to attend a London University. He was very engaged in his studies (straight As, with prospects to go to Stanford), but was reportedly shy and unsocial with other students, and though his family visited his flat on holidays, the visits were brief. One of the few things that connected him to his roots was the Muslim faith, and though he was separated from the community of worship he grew up with, he frequented an Islamic Forum under the handle Farouk1986, where he talked with with peers, and even helped them through feelings of loneliness and abandonment:
When I first came here, I thought I was the only lonely soul, but after, I realized that almost every good Muslim gets lonely at some point... This I believe is because really there are many Muslims but most are just Muslims by name who do not practice the deen earnestly, leaving the few good Muslims alone. So it’s a test we have to strive and go through for the sake of Allah.”
Perhaps tapping into the loneliness he had felt, he was approached by those associated with Mullah Mohammad Omar, who is the spiritual leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan. They provided a sense of community, and a "greater cause" to devote himself to, in a time of loneliness and vulnerability. After he graduated, rather than going on to School in California as he had earlier planned, he disappeared to Yemen for training with the Taliban, and subsequently was sent to perform the attack.
However, and I am going on a limb here, I suspect that he may have WANTED to be caught on the plane. Perhaps he had second thoughts about it, or perhaps he had been going along with the pressures of his peers, and the religious authority of his newfound Mullah... but when the moment came and he had the option to carry it out in secrecy, he chose not to.
P.S. An interesting side note: he's currently in a prison about 15 minutes from my house. I wanted to drop by and perhaps provide an ear to listen, but I don't know how prison systems and visitations work.
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