BRADFORD, England — Zahoor Ahmed shakes his head in disbelief as he surveys the back of a terraced house belonging to the family of the three Dawood sisters, believed to have traveled to Syria to join the Daesh (the so-called IS) militants and brought their nine children with them. “Why would you go to Syria? I don't understand it,” said Ahmed, 52, wearing traditional Muslim attire as he surveyed the unremarkable street in the northern English city of Bradford, where he said he had never encountered extremism.
He is far from the only person in Bradford bewildered by the apparent decision of Sugra, Zohra and Khadija Dawood to journey to Syria with their children, the youngest aged just three, and leave their husbands behind.
The case came to light just two days after reports that Talha Asmal, a 17-year-old from Dewsbury just a few miles from Bradford, had carried out a Daesh attack in Iraq, becoming what is believed to be Britain's youngest suicide bomber.
Both incidents have provoked soul searching among British Muslims at a time when the government is proposing new laws to give the authorities greater powers to fight radicalization and potentially shut down mosques linked to extremists.
Lawyers representing the family of three British sisters have slammed the police, arguing the authorities were complicit in the grooming and “This paves the way for young people to turn simmering prejudice into murderous intent; to go from listening to firebrand preachers online to boarding a plane to Istanbul and traveling onward.”
He plans new laws to ramp up powers to ban “extremist” groups, close mosques where radicals thrive and censor media to restrict broadcasts that encourage extremism.
But some British Muslims say such measures are counter-productive, increasing the feeling of isolation that fuels radicalism. The state needs to work with Muslims, not demonize them, said Bana Gora, founding member of Bradford's Muslim Women's Council.
“This onslaught of counter terrorism legislation that's coming through is not going to help matters,” she said.
If the government takes on “powers to shut down mosques at their pleasure, how is that going to help build relationships between the Muslim community and the state?” she said.
Stories of recruits traveling to Iraq and Syria open politically sensitive questions about whether Britain is doing enough to integrate minorities, especially in poor northern cities with a history of racial strife.
Nearly a quarter of Bradford's estimated 526,400 population are Muslim and the area has England's largest proportion of people of Pakistani heritage. Like many northern towns and cities it has struggled economically in recent years with the unemployment rate above the regional and national average.
Parts of Bradford were torched in race riots between whites and people of Asian descent in 2001, although today most people who live there say it is a friendly city and communities get along well.
The Dawoods' neighborhood is typical: working class and ethnically-mixed, where women in veils are as common as white men in England soccer shirts, and churches and mosques operate cheek by jowl. — Agencies
