turncoat in had of active change foundation welcome to the show it's great to have you with us so a ricin was an attack on a mosque by the extreme right winger in new zealand kill fifty people or so it is today so basically spotting potential jihadist that they actually have turned a blind eye to far right extremism i think the problem has been developing for many many years and i and i wrote about this in my book. look we always you've got a problem of right of extremism probably just perspective and particular from within the muslim communities. and because we haven't been addressing that effectively. it's no doubt that the narrative that doesn't come out from within societies is going to give no but we've been talking about it for many many years i don't think i don't know as a matter of not having the time i think being ignorant to the development of

far right extremism which has been happening right under our noses not just in the u.k. but right across europe and across other parts of the world as we witnessed in new zealand. and if we don't if we don't take stock of our approaches to violent extremism in all its forms then i'm afraid these two monsters be it. based extremism or far right based extremism will consume all societies so the new zealand attack has been staged by a white supremacist you've been working with islamist extremists for a long time but it's never work with this side of radicalism i mean would you expect the mentality of a white supremacist to be so different from that of a jihadist fighter that there are similarities in the way that they are recruited and there's an ideology behind this and we saw this in new zealand when some people would say oh there's no ideology behind far you know far right extremism or white

supremacy of course that is i've not come across you know any any individuals that i've got to work with from a far right extremist background but i've met many people from that kind of an ideology and it's the. narrative is a kind of similar to what would. what would you know affect an individual from a from a muslim background but. there's a lack of. understanding by institutions and governments as to how much or how effective and how. dangerous these organizations can be so in the wake of this hack at least partial blame has been attributed to the internet and online culture is this where hate crimes like that originate in these days and age i mean considering how it's been going on for many years now with isis it's wrong to blame the internet or social media for you know all the problems we've got we've

got problems with gun violence and you know all kinds of things online grooming but look in terms of violent extremism which which creates terrorism it's not just the internet you know you have to be able to engage and these these narratives and these conversations you know taken place offline within communities and in societies as well as online so it's not just a matter of you know addressing it from a social media perspective we have to have a robust. you know proactive approach to these problems from the grassroots in the first place if you come people you know physically as well as what should be you know going to be able to change them so it's going to start from the grassroots level and it's going to take shape and the conversations to counter this problem to also include online as well but it's not just about focusing on line but do you think does it feels like the authorities are sort of. delegating the blame to the

social media for taking care of this things before they happen. of course it's unfortunate me you know we found out you know it when the authorities whether they're here in the u.k. or across the world they would always shift the blame to something else or somebody else and it's got to be you know where the saudis are got to take stock they're going to take responsibility for the problems within society because they alternately they have they have developed policies and they can develop policies that will affect our societies so it's wrong for the authorities to push the blame on one particular. issue. and this instant be it you know internet all social media organizations and companies so it's wrong for them to do that just like you know it's our duty it's the it's the government's duty to protect our societies on all you know in all aspects on every level on the

grassroots community based and also put safeguards in place for online said the new zealand attacker posted his ideas and manifest sell online yet if they were nice and big tack companies to shut him down in your view is black and ideas become testate out in the open. well if we if we've got a number of different approaches across the world to contest and challenge and tackle the hate preachers and the narratives i come out over radical you know islamic you know preaching and india individuals why shouldn't we do the same with the ideology that we face with from far right supremacists and you know far right extremists we have to be able to have you know individuals and mechanisms and processes in place where we tackle the ideology not only happen through a set of conversations and we can choose to have those conversations online offline

and i say we have to start offline first because there is no way on earth i will accept or any expert in the field. this individual doubt cardo the it's like a new zealand was groomed and radicalized online purely he had connections around the world and with all the individuals on the will flow in can you know conversations being had which led him to become so violently driven by this is what he did so isis has cold for revenge for the christ church attack should we expect a tit for tat string of attacks now of course look ice is looking for these kind of a but you know these are both feed off each other and i've been saying this for many many years you can go into a book of each other and we can expect it for unfortunately i hope we don't see it but it's a natural outcome to expect because of the way that these individuals these networks and groups feed off each other. you've been working with youths who got radicalized

after seeing people of their face killed in mass numbers and you said it is extremely difficult to help them cope with hate they have inside them do you think church of christ church will radicalize even more people even further. i think if we look at the broader picture and the dynamics involved. with this situation in christchurch all the inscriptions the manifesto and the narratives that are coming out you know and you could say it's information or it's misinformation or fake news or real news but the reality is that it's affecting you know thousands and thousands of individual some of them may be true and some of them may not but the reality is that the indian readers are coming up with these theories that is what they believe so i feel that it's going to be a challenge for us to tackle the ideology going forward because there are

legitimate grievances and if you look at the inscriptions of the money festo the house is being written by one that's been supported by others so we know there's a big network out there and because we know that so do individuals that isis will exploit and recruit not just isis there are others out there you know there's lots of ninety's coming out from within communities here in the u.k. and across the world that something must be done because there's a whole agenda to to to annihilate islam from the from the earth and this is what they believe whether we accept that all not. so if there's an attack committed by him last thing we can see the term islamic terrorism being used oh all over the media yet there were task committed by white supremacists are immediately recognized as acts of terrorism just as well you'll never see terms like white terrorists and or christian terrorism in the headlines why do you think that

society uses terrorism and islam in one phrase but doesn't link terrorism to christianity for instance. so so this is a classic which is a classic non-tariff that stems from within communities. not just here in the u.k. like i said across the world it affects everybody and this is what a lot of i'd say millions of muslims being saying i've been calling for one of being a well grievances about when it's a muslim that does things it's a terrorist it's a terrorist incident or once a white person supremacy it's a it's a shoot or it's it's and it's a young child who grew up to be an evil individual nobody calls it why terrorism like you just said and only cause a christian terrorism because it's it now this is a narrative that i'm going to use from a young person because it suits the agenda. young people believe that there's an agenda to undermine the sloman muslims and the reason why they don't use white terrorist or christian terrorist because it doesn't suit the agenda of the house

that's the narrative that young people watch one of my young people use and you know why every time we do this now we time we fail to call a spade a spade to call a terrorist a terrorist they would tell we failed but we are confirming the narrative and the ideology of the young people who would become sympathetic towards an extremist. all right we're going to take a short break right now when we're back we'll continue talking about violent extremism and the radicalization with. former al qaeda turncoat and had actually change foundation stay with us.

after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next. different clubs on one hand it is logical to sort of go from fields where everything is familiar on the other i want to the new challenge and the fresh perspective i'm used to surprising people and i saw one on t.v. . i'm going to talk about football not the or else you think i was going to do. you know world of big part of the law and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media group. uses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other it's tolerance for critical thinking it's time to fight for the

middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. on the walls it. seems to do crack when i was a little kid my dad he was like. us to be so you know like what i needed when i was a baby but i had a bad childhood. there's always been single mothers in african-american communities ever since slavery. i think it's more of these teenagers having kids in you can expect a fourteen or fifteen year old first daughter to order for and there be a father and he's a check out. we actually lost our place and. my car you know breaking down and i was unable to get to work on time so they let

me go in with my paycheck that i bring home i have barely enough to pay my car insurance. gas in my car. and we're back in the studio with how nice car the air x. member of al qaida i had over active change foundation talking about his experiences in extremists and use colleagues ation welcome back so you have said she used. to be an al qaeda member and you even went to afghanistan to join the group there but you said you won there are not as a terrorist but as a humanitarian what does that mean i mean did you did your recruiters promise you

a non-combat role what was their plan for you what exactly were you supposed to do in their. no say it wasn't i mean it wasn't about me joining. it was about me going to help alleviate the suffering of the innocent women and children that were caught up in the invasion of afghanistan by the united states and the allies and it's only when you arrive there and you find out that the amount of destruction and loss of life or innocent women and children is that you know the reality hits you. so it wasn't about me you know one humanitarian work but this is also what happens to lots of young men and women that have gone from me previously to join to deploy to afghanistan or to want to iraq or to go to other places of conflict they go because they feel about the human suffering of their fellow muslim brothers and sisters you know my in my case it was about human beings it was about children it was about you

know innocent women and children so it was and this is exactly we've got a lot of people that go from this country to go and fight with the peshmerga because they feel. passionate about it the feel sympathetic towards the use easy women but then the the narrative also comes out is but what about the young innocent you know women and children from the muslim families and the human beings and that's why it was i was compelled i was i was emotionally driven you know. to do something to help those those individuals and to stop the suffering and where you see all kind of member not i mean what is the correct way yes i want the aware of how i mean yes yes i was because because it's because when i went there last time i realize who these people were but by the time you realize that what they're doing it's not what i would as a saying you know you see them as terrorists you know on the screen but when you when you're going then you see the amount of humanitarian work that they've been doing you realize that actually what the terrorists wherever they go and you rock

should realize that how far from the truth it actually really is one to join isis you know i know it's difficult for people to appreciate and understand. but i can tell you one is that when people go there realize how wrong they were how mistaken they were i know violent evil those organizations are but it's wrong for us then to then deny them a chance to return for rehabilitation. so you say what turned you away from was there he's of children attacks and so you had back to the kingdon to prevent terrorists from radicalizing other young people i thought ok it wasn't the kind of group that's easy to leave i mean how difficult was it for you to get out of afghanistan it's not i mean there's many groups that are not easy to leave you have to be very lucky to be able to you know sometimes turn your back on them but when you know the people that i met from here in the u.k. and. i realize and they realize that you know there was no they were duped me into

this using young children to become suicide bombers is not part of i was old enough i wasn't naive you know as a child or young person i was old enough to challenge the ideology that's wrong but i was lucky to be able to you know step away and the middle of the night but not many people have had that luck and it's not easy to leave those things when i went you know they've become a lot more violent and a lot more driven to once they've got somebody and amongst them they're not going at them go so it's very difficult for many people to leave and if they can i think we should offer them a route back so we can you know rehabilitate them and i learn from them when you were back to the u.k. when you just returned to your daily routine as if you've never been in the ranks of the worst terrorist network in the world i mean did you did so it is look into your profile. i think i think i think isis of taken the rank of the

worst terrorist organization in the world since from ok fair enough but ok it's pretty bad just to of course of course of course i'm just i'm just saying you know as a bit of humor but i was coming back to the u.k. i want you i didn't know what to do with myself you know i was a businessman before i left i was a family man i didn't want to go back to work i didn't feel i wanted to spend more time with my family with my kids with my brothers because i felt i'd betrayed them and i betrayed my religion and i almost took away you know a father from my children on a family member from my you know stressed out i was you know i was going through a lot of trauma as to what i had actually done and what potentially could have happened to me i didn't speak to the authorities i didn't think it was important because i didn't do anything illegal but you know it's it would took it took me time to get people to understand in my community that we have a problem and i i started to engage with the local muslim community who actually

didn't know what i was talking about even the local authorities even government officials it took one individual to actually realize how how real the problem is and actually understand me and i was a police officer and i spoke to him that's the first person upon my brothers and i told about you know why i'm saying we have a problem in this country and then we had seventy seven unfortunately that's when people actually start to realize that what i was saying it is true and it will be a reality and then we had the allied plot in two thousand and two thousand and six . which happened right in our neighborhood and that's when i think our local authorities actually realized that what i was saying i was talking sense. so that's that's that's what my my when i returned that's what my you know my intentions was have been my passion lies in tackling this problem this coach and i think you know it's i written about in the book many times so you ran actually change foundation

that you used to deal with radical ass individuals you said that your organization was among the most successful guns in the field. is there no more government funding for it and why isn't the british government supporting organizations like yours any more. so up so i have to say that i started off the organization with my own funds and i sold my businesses and what i would probably i had do to keep us on the plot but our funding is being cut since two thousand and sixteen the whole prevent agenda as being too politicized you know it's been driven by individuals who are being opinionated it's taken me i off the ball i will work countering one extremism is risky what with all the sudden we're being told that our work is too risky so it was about the government becoming too risk averse and. intentions being being focused elsewhere for light for instance bracks it and becoming prime minister so we got involved because we wished we were leading the way and we were

known as the pioneers of the field and when you the pioneers you're always going to come across different issues and obstacles and mistakes and failures and we did you know we had some mistakes ressam failures like anybody would but we weren't. it wasn't such that would cause a problem with society it was like we were learning and we were passing the learning back to others so they could learn from us but it became too politicized and that's where we lost our funding so now we almost on the brink of closure and i'm looking at ways of reviving the organization i was since the new zealand attack because i believe that a grassroots community approach is the way forward in tackling extremism. so i just wonder in your line of work have you ever managed to talk somebody out of committing an actual terrorist attack so it's we've worked with our organization has worked with some of the most high risk individuals in

this country if not in europe and i know i challenge you to that to check with our weather with the home office with our records and i've actually worked with individuals who were prepared to carry out acts of terrorism. and i managed to dissuade them and persuade them not to do this i won't say that they were about to commit an accident act of terrorism imminent me i would say they were thinking of doing so and we managed to talk to them meant to them and put them back into the system of a different kind of understanding so yes the answer to your question is yes we have you know prevented india because we're becoming terrorists. he is a radicalization begins with an idea with a conversation so does that mean that at the end of the day there will always be terrorists after all you can kill a man but you can't kill a conversation you can kill the idea and i say that and i said that again after

a foot of the book i written in there you can you can bomb your way out you know you can try bombing your way out of it if we look since nine eleven and the war on terror. and if you look at how many terrorists have been killed since nine eleven but look at how much terrorism and terrorist networks have increased with almost ten twenty thirty fuld you know it's been multiplied many times so by killing terrorists we haven't we don't get to defeat terrorism you can't kill the idea and those conversations will continue to happen it's like people will say george bush said we've defeated the tire that we've got them on the run i don't think so look now and now we've been saying you know we've been we've defeated isis you know that we've we've called of the most we finish them off i don't think so there will never you can never defeat them completely less we approach this in a different way killing a way out of it you're killing innocent women and children so you kill ten

terrorists and you give fifty you know a reason to to become a terrorist so we've seen that by wall alone you come out and you come up decrease it you're going to increase terrorism it has to be a different approach it has to be through a set of conversations it has to be through a grassroots community approach just like you created evolution so you know i also not long ago spoke to a man named dean who is an al qaeda turncoat and also part unspecified sessile spy in your organization and he said that there is now at theological crisis in islam because i'm quoting many muslims around the world have a superficial understanding of their face the radicals that you worked with was that the case with them did they understand they say that they were about to kill or be killed for. you know to some extent they were that what they would kill and kill for and be killed for what they believed in. you one could argue that that

could be a slam i would say yes you know they use islam as a rico but don't use the islamic theology as a vehicle they use a small as a recall but it's the what's happening around the world with regards to what's happening in afghanistan with up in iraq and syria and published on on all over the world where muslims are being persecuted are being attacked not a walk on the standing on any any expert will tell you that they take their religion out of context to. create a narrative that would allow an individual to believe that they're doing it for the sake of their religion. whatever it is that you are doing or talking to one hundred . thousand had a back to change foundation discussing radicalization of use and the best ways to tackle it that's it for this edition of sophie and cost you next time.

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