HOW HEROIN CREATES TERRORISTS

Rageh Omaar reveals how "Sergeant Heroin" has become an important
recruiting officer for militant groups

Hundreds of young British Asians and Somalis in cities throughout the
UK have become vulnerable and isolated within their own communities
as a result of dealing in and using drugs. They form a critical
recruiting ground for militant organisations.

Heroin's grip on inner city estates used to be described through the
phrase "King Heroin" - but a much better phrase to describe the role
the drug has played in helping militant groups reach out to young
British Muslims is "Sergeant Heroin". It is a real and important
recruiting officer for militant groups.

I've spent much of the past month exploring the meteoric rise in the
dealing of hard drugs among young Somali, Pakistani and Bangladeshi
boys in London - in Hounslow, Woolwich and Tower Hamlets. Most of
them belong to gangs, but only in the loosest sense of the word. They
describe themselves as "crews" - often nothing more than a group of
young boys who have all grown up together, and are tightly knit
around their families, culture and skin colour.

Brick Lane has changed enormously over the past decade; regeneration
has transformed it into one of the capital's tourist highlights.
You're as likely to meet young tourists from Denmark and Holland as
young Somalis and Bengalis. But step away from the glitz and buzzing
restaurants of Brick Lane, down any of the side streets that lead to
the estates three minutes away from the celebrated road, and you find
some of the most deprived wards in the UK.

Down one such side streets is a small fenced-in five-a-side football
pitch and patch of green. The area is notorious for the sale and use
of heroin. At 11pm on a cold Friday, I was taken here by volunteers
from the Brick Lane Youth Development Association. Muhammad Rabbani
and his co-workers counsel and mentor hundreds of boys as young as 14
and 15 who find themselves in a a world of drugs, academic failure,
racism and much more.

As we walked through the estates behind Brick Lane, Muhammad and his
colleagues were recognised by respectful young teenagers, both Asian
and Somali. Irham, 16, and his Somali friend, Abdallah, spoke calmly
of how dealers offered users a combination called "Black and White" -
a wrap of heroin (black) along with a wrap of crack (white). Around
the corner, in one dealing hotspot - completely in the open - were
older Bengali lads selling the heroin wraps, while users sat around
smoking the drug. Even here, Muhammad and his colleagues have access
and sufficient respect to approach dealers and urge them to stop what
they are doing, offering support to help them do so.

Drugs play an important role in radicalisation. Everyone knows who is
dealing. It is when these young men have been ostracised or go to
prison - in other words when they've hit rock bottom - that they are
ripe for targeting by proselytisers. At first, it is a way out of
drugs. Families are overjoyed at seeing lads who were once dealing
drugs going to the mosque, studying in madrasa groups - even asking
to go to Pakistan or Somalia to study the Koran. It is a far more
radical version of how the Nation of Islam spread among black
Americans whose lives were blighted by drugs, poverty, crime and alienation.

When the government speaks of concentrating on combating radicalism
in cyberspace, they betray how ill-equipped they are to reach out to
those young men most vulnerable to al-Qaeda's message. Organisations
such as BLYDA need support. The men in these organisations have
respect and legitimacy among young British Muslims. Many have gone
through what these 14- and 15-year-olds are facing and many others
have gone through radical "first point of contact" organisations such
as Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Many British Muslims do heroic but utterly unsupported work with
youngsters to keep them from being disenchanted, hopeless and
radicalised. I call them the Thin Brown Line. The battle will be lost
without them.