User:Geo Swan/working/Religious conversion and terrorism (fixed)

Religious converts have been thought to have a special zeal, that frequanlty exceeds those born in that faith. A number of well known cases in recent past have involved terrorsts who are converts. For example, Rajah Solaiman Revolutionary Movement (RSRM) is a movement of converts to Islam in Philippines that seek to establsh a theocratic Islamic state across the Philippines A study by the Washington-based Nixon Center that examined the backgrounds of 373 terrorists in Europe and the U.S. found 35 of them (9%) were converts to Islam

Convert terrorists and Police

Simon Montlake, a Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor writes:

Investigators say that Islamic converts can evade ethnic profiling by police, opening up a new front for groups like Abu Sayyaf that are being squeezed by US-aided military offensives in the south. "This tactical alliance [between southern insurgents and Islamic converts] will emerge to challenge the government in new ways," warns Rodolfo Mendoza, a senior police official who tracks Islamic militants.

The Asia Times reports

The deadly mix of JI and Abu Sayyaf has lately been enriched by yet another explosive ingredient - the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM), a radical wing of the Filipino Balik Islam, as those who have abandoned Catholicism to "return" to Islam are known.

"The [Abu Sayyaf] and JI are working increasingly with the RSM, militant converts to Islam based in Manila and northern Luzon, who are a vehicle for more experienced terrorist groups to move into the country's urban heartland," reported the well-respected think-tank International Crisis Group in its December report "Philippines Terrorism: The Role of Militant Islamic Converts".

Notable converts who are alleged to have moved on to terrorism

Some of the prominent converts include:

name	cause	terrorist act	notes
Dhiren Barot	Muslim extremist	bomber	Confessed to plotting to bomb financial targets.
Adam Gadahn	Salafism	propaganda	Appeared in al Qaeda videos.
David Hicks	Muslim extremist	"aid"	Pleaded guilty to providing aid to al Qaeda.
Muriel Degauque	Muslim extremist	suicide bomber	Injured a police offider with the bomb with which she killed herself.
Richard Reid	Muslim extremist	failed bomber	The "shoe bomber"
Bob Denard
Aukai Collins
some of the The Portland Seven
Daniel Maldonado	Muslim extremist	terrorism	Daniel Maldonado was charged with committing terrorist acts in Somalia.
John Walker Lindh			Confessed after the use of "extended interrogation techniques" — the only proof that he planned to engage in terrorism.
Eden Natan-Zada	radical Judaism	killer	According to The Times: "The parents and neighbours of the gunman told how within two years Eden Natan-Zada turned from a bright and studious Israeli schoolboy into an ultrareligious zealot implacably opposed to Ariel Sharon’s plan to evacuate Jews from Gaza." Follower of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Israeli Prime Minister called him a "terrorist".
Walid Shoebat			former terrorist
Ahmad Santos			Converted to Islam while working in Saudi Arabia. Alleged bomb-maker. The founder of the Rajah Solaiman Movement.
Derrick Shareef
Willie Brigitte
Germaine Lindsay
James Charles Kopp	right to life	Assassination	Shot and killed Barnett Slepian, a doctor who performed abortions.
Michael F. Griffin	right to life	Assassination	Shot and killed David Gunn, a doctor who performed abortions. Allegedly yelled "You won't kill any more babies!" when he made his shot.

Olivier Roy, a Paris-based authority on Islamic radicalism, believes that the common factor among violent Islamists — converts and non-converts — is that all are "born again." He writes:

"They broke with the religion of their parents to fervently embrace a new one, or a more fundamentalist stream of Islam, such as Saudi Arabian-based Wahhabism. He describes converts turning to jihad as following the well-established path of European rebels embracing an extremist cause.

"The people going to Al Qaeda today, a good part of them would have gone to the extreme left 30 years ago," said Roy, research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

Harvard sociologist Marc Sageman, author of "Understanding Terror Networks", disagrees

"If you look at the history of converts, they usually converted because their friends became Muslims, and when the group radicalized they radicalized along with the group," said Sageman, who studied the profile of 172 known terrorists.

In NE India, terrorism has been linked to religious conversion..

See also

• Sociology of terrorism
• Tactics of terrorism
• Religious terrorism
• Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines

External links

• He embraced Islam, then terrorism

Category:Religious conversion Category:Religion and violence