Karim Ben Khelifa for TIME belgium An anti-U.S. message is scrawled on a wall in a predominantly Muslim area of Brussels

	GENERATION JIHAD

Posted Sunday, Oct. 23, 2005; 10.53BST
Young men like Khan are members of generation jihad — restive, rootless Muslims who have spent their lives in Europe but now find themselves alienated from their societies, or outraged by the policies of their governments, or both. “There are young people who wouldn't mind if the Central Station in Amsterdam blew up,” says Abdul Jabar van der Ven, 28, a Dutch Muslim preacher who converted from Catholicism at the age of 14. He adds that he would not applaud such violence, but that many young Muslims in Europe — raised in secular households and communities — are too unfamiliar with Islamic doctrine to filter out the radical interpretations they hear. “Many of the youngsters who become extremists have no knowledge of Arabic or religion,” he says. “So they go on the Internet and read all these sites.”

Their determination to vent their rage is apparent with each new police sweep in Europe. Last week, British police arrested three men suspected of international terrorism after a series raids in southeast England. Earlier this month, cops in the Netherlands arrested seven radicals allegedly preparing assaults against Dutch political figures and government buildings, while busts in France have landed six men with links to underground Algerian networks in jail on evidence they were orchestrating terror strikes. “Just as unsettling as the operative cells we discover are the support networks and isolated groups we don't always identify,” warns a senior French investigator. “Those are far more numerous, and many are able to become fully operative for attack when instructed.”

While the precise number of European jihadis is impossible to pinpoint, counterterrorism officials across the Continent believe the pool of radicals is growing. A 2004 estimate by the French police found that around 150 of the country's 1,600 mosques and prayer halls were under the control of extremist elements; in a study of 1,160 recent French converts to Islam, 23% identified themselves as Salafists, members of a sect that has been associated with violent extremism. In the Netherlands, home to 1 million Muslims, a spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service says it is believed as many as 20 different hard-line Islamic groups may be operating. Some are simply prayer groups adhering to radical interpretations of the Koran, while others may be organizing and recruiting for violence. In Britain, authorities say that as many as 3,000 veterans of al-Qaeda training camps over the years were born or based within its borders.

What explains the proliferation of Europe's homegrown radicals? Interviews by Time correspondents with dozens of Muslims across Western Europe reveal consistent answers as to why so many are responding to the call of extremism. Some lack a sense of belonging in European societies that have long struggled to assimilate new immigrants from the Islamic world. Many, in particular younger Muslims, suffer disproportionately from Europe's high-unemployment, slow-growth economies. Others are outraged over the bloodshed in Iraq and the persistent notion that the West is waging an assault on Islam itself. “There's a spreading atmosphere of indignation among normal Muslims that is echoing among the younger generation,” says a French investigator with a decade of antiterror experience.

It's echoing loudly, in part because the anger is amplified by 21st century technology. In the past, the alienated would simmer in relative isolation, unable to connect or communicate with those who shared their anger. The Internet has changed that. Critical to the rise of generation jihad has been the ease with which its members can communicate with each other and peruse controversial websites like Tajdeed.net, run by Saudi dissident and London resident Mohammed al-Massari. While his other English site hosts what he calls “philosophical discussions,” the Arabic site shows gruesome videos of U.S. and British troops being blown up by Iraqi insurgents, and beheadings of kidnap victims. Al-Massari says he cannot control what is posted there. These days, the very existence of such sites alarms the British government. Prime Minister Tony Blair, in the wake of the summer bombings, vowed to crack down on “specific extremist websites.”

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