The Making Of A Terrorist - It Starts At The Age of 14 Yrs Old

This really is an excellent article here out of The Telegraph and I suggest that you read the whole article. It deals with how one of the three convicted terrorists in the trans atlantic airline bombing plot, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, began his journey into jihad and how that started when he was just a boy of 14. Here's a bit of the details excerpted out of the article:

By the time the photographs were taken, Ali, who was then 14 or 15, was already praising the Taliban and calling for sharia to be introduced alongside British laws, according to Mr Hough, 53. While he described Ali as "an ordinary lad, a good athlete and basketball player", the teacher said the youth had come under the influence of "slightly older college-age students" outside school and had begun watching videos about the Taliban and about how Muslims were being treated in Bosnia and Chechnya. "He was always trying to persuade other people that Islam was the path to follow," said Mr Hough.

Ali is also believed to have made links with the"preacher of hate" Abu Izzadeen, 32, who is serving a jail term for inciting terrorism. The two were members of Mr Qadir's gym at the same time.
Izzadeen has praised the 7/7 London bombers and even heckled John Reid, then Home Secretary, when he addressed a Muslim gathering in 2006. Mr Qadir said: "Ahmed Ali and Omar Brooks were members of the gym at the same time. It is possible they exchanged views."

I read this article and it makes sense that by coming under the influence of Izzadeen could certainly mold a young man's mind into one of a killer but what I just don't get is this - how does a 14 yr old boy get to the point where he is "already praising the Taliban and calling for sharia to be introduced alongside British laws" ???? I mean, think about yourself as a 14 year old - would your mind be centered on such things? What happened to this guy's childhood overall?

What this article also points out is the fact that the islamists have always been able to feed off the mosques as prime recruiting ground. They play off these young boys' reverence for their "god" and then are able to divert those young minds into the the periperal ideas of jihad - the violence, the revenge, the world domination. And the most frightening thing about this whole scenario laid out here at The Telegraph is how easy it all seemed to turn this kid and how many more thousands are being turned as I type these words.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali: A terrorist in the making at the age of 14

With his striped school tie and crisp white shirt he looks like a typical schoolboy. But 12 years after these photographs were taken, Abdulla Ahmed Ali was convicted of plotting to kill thousands of people in terrorist attacks.
Until now, little has been known about the making of Ali the terrorist. But The Sunday Telegraph has pieced together how the 27-year-old, described as the leader of the liquid bomb plot, "hero-worshipped" the Taliban as a teenager and went on to turn against his British homeland despite having taken advantage of the higher education system, state benefits and council housing. According to Imtiaz Qadir, 51, a friend of the family, Ali, while growing up in the 1980s, encountered people who visited Afghanistan at a time when the Islamic Mujahideen (holy warriors) – backed by the United States – were fighting against Russian occupying forces. The war led ultimately to the Taliban regime.
The meetings appear to have had an impact on the young Ali. His religious education teacher at school, Mark Hough, who taught Ali at Aveling Park secondary school in Walthamstow, east London, said: "He thought the Taliban had created a model society in Afghanistan."
By the time the photographs were taken, Ali, who was then 14 or 15, was already praising the Taliban and calling for sharia to be introduced alongside British laws, according to Mr Hough, 53. While he described Ali as "an ordinary lad, a good athlete and basketball player", the teacher said the youth had come under the influence of "slightly older college-age students" outside school and had begun watching videos about the Taliban and about how Muslims were being treated in Bosnia and Chechnya. "He was always trying to persuade other people that Islam was the path to follow," said Mr Hough.
At the time – before home-grown terrorists had attacked British people – the teacher was not concerned about the change in his pupil, and assumed that he would grow out of his views.
However, Ali was already visiting a mosque two or three times a week and attending religious meetings at a house in the Higham Hill area on Fridays. "I was shocked when he was arrested," he said. "When I saw that he said on his martyrdom video that he'd wanted to do this since he was 15, I did remember how he had looked up to the Taliban."
Mr Qadir, who runs a gym and youth club in east London that are part of the Active Change Foundation, set up in 2004 to stop young Muslims becoming radicalised, claimed that Ali's parents and the rest of his family would be shocked by what their son had done, and would never condone any attack on innocent civilians. The foundation's goal is to counter radicalisation by inviting extremists to debate with moderates.
Ali is also believed to have made links with the"preacher of hate" Abu Izzadeen, 32, who is serving a jail term for inciting terrorism. The two were members of Mr Qadir's gym at the same time.
Izzadeen has praised the 7/7 London bombers and even heckled John Reid, then Home Secretary, when he addressed a Muslim gathering in 2006. Mr Qadir said: "Ahmed Ali and Omar Brooks were members of the gym at the same time. It is possible they exchanged views."
He said he could not rule out the possibility that Izzadeen had influenced Ali's drift towards violence.
Mr Qadir said he had "no inkling" that Ali had been radicalised. "He slipped under the radar. I feel I let him down," he said.