David Amess victim of jihadism
On 15 October 2021, British Conservative MP David Amess was stabbed to death during a meeting with voters in a church. The perpetrator was a 25-year-old Somali-born man named Ali Harbi Ali, the son of a former advisor to Somalia's prime minister. Ali had been a subject of the national anti-radicalisation programme Prevent, "a volunteer-based scheme for people at risk of radicalisation, according to the BBC", from which he had defected.
To date he has not been directly linked to any jihadist terrorist organisation, however investigations by Scotland Yard "reveal a motivation potentially linked to Islamist extremism", through a perpetrator process. through a process of self-radicalisation inspired by Al Shabaab, an organisation not as internationally renowned as Daesh or Al Qaeda but truly bloodthirsty in Somalia and Kenya, with a total of fifteen attacks and 83 murders in the last three months.
The process of self-radicalisation did not raise any suspicions with MI5, nor did the fact that it had already been part of the Prevent programme, which has already been sent for review by Minister Priti Patel. According to Harbi Ali's close relatives, his radicalisation increased during his confinement by Covid, as he watched numerous extremist speeches by the preacher Anjem Choudary, an Islamist cleric who has served time in prison on charges of inciting support for Daesh.
The motive for the murder, according to the newspaper El Mundo, could be related to Amess's close relationship with Qatar, "he was in fact chairman of the parliamentary group set up specifically in Westminster to improve relations with Qatar". The crux of the matter lies in Qatari support for the current Somali president, who has illegally delayed elections to prolong his mandate.
Again, these are second-generation individuals; children of migrants who were born in the host country, in this case the UK, but who have been raised between two cultures. These individuals often suffer identity crises as they do not see themselves as fully integrated into either culture, feeling marginalised and displaced. Immersed in a limbo of emotional instability, they often choose to turn to avenues that promise them a way out. It is in this breeding ground that jihadism finds its best prey.