Quotes of the Day

The last time Myriam Cherif saw her son Peter was in May of 2004. She quietly wept as the two of them stood at the elevator on the fifth floor of the gritty public-housing project where they lived just north of Paris. Myriam, 48, was born in Tunisia, moved to France when she was 8 and became a French citizen. Peter's father, who died when the boy was 14, was a Roman Catholic from the French Antilles in the Caribbean. But Peter, 23, took a different path. In 2003 he converted to Islam and became a devout Muslim, after years of worshipping little more than video games and French rap stars. He took to wearing loose trousers and a long tunic instead of blue jeans. Then, one day in spring last year, the headphones of a digital recorder playing Koranic prayersjammed into his ears, Peter told his mother he was heading to Syria to study Arabic and the Koran. At first, Peter e-mailed his mother every couple of days, sending her snapshots and news of his studies in Damascus. Then in July, he told her he was headed for a "spiritual retreat" and would be out of touch for a while. She heard nothing until last December, when she received a brief phone call from a French government official who told her that Peter had been captured by U.S. soldiers in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Today Peter, one of five French citizens in American hands, is being held at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, U.S. military officials in Iraq say. More than a year since she last heard from her son, Myriam is still trying to understand how, in the streets and cafés of Paris, Peter and other young Muslims like him were lured to give up their lives in the West to pursue jihad. "They saw aggressive, violent images on the Internet, and asked questions about why Muslims were suffering abroad while European countries were doing nothing," she says. "It's like they set off a bomb in their heads."

The July 7 suicide bombings in London provided a deadly reminder to European governments of the chilling reality they confront: the adherents of the most radical forms of Islam are found not just on the Pakistan-Afghan border or the violent streets of Iraq. Instead, in Europe, the enemy is within, made up of young men born and raised in working-class neighborhoods throughout Britain, the banlieues of Paris, and the gritty industrial towns of the Netherlands and Belgium. Most Muslims in Europe, of course, are not radicals, and deplore the violence committed in Islam's name. But with disturbing frequency, deeply alienated young Muslims across the Continent, men like Peter Cherif, are finding spiritual and political homes in the most radical, anti-Western strains of Islam — becoming homegrown jihadis, determined, apparently, to bring the fight to the countries in which they were raised. Listen to the videotape purportedly made by Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the London bombers. Khan denounces Europe's "democratically elected governments" for carrying out "atrocities" against Muslims. "We are at war and I am a soldier," he warns. "Now you too will taste the reality of this situation." A blood-curdling threat — issued in his distinctive Yorkshire accent.

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."

Combine alienation, unemployment, political anger and the power of the Internet, and the result is toxic. In neighborhoods of north and east London, Sajid Sharif, a 37-year-old civil engineer who goes by the name Abu Uzair, once handed out incendiary leaflets for the now dissolved al-Muhajiroun extremist youth movement. In the climate of suspicion engendered by the July 7 attacks, firebrands like Sharif have adopted a lower profile. He has stopped recruiting on the streets and now leads a radical group from his home. His so-called Saviour Sect claims several hundred supporters and seeks to unite all Muslims worldwide under a strict conception of Islamic law. That might seem fanciful — except that Sharif's mentor, al-Muhajiroun founder Omar Bakri Muhammad, was one of the first clerics to lose his right to live in Britain. In August, Bakri was barred from returning from a vacation abroad when Britain's Home Secretary Charles Clarke declared his presence "not conducive to the public good." Sharif says he isn't concerned about the threat of eviction because he is British-born, and his lawyer has told him he has little to worry about. "Anyway," he says calmly, "it is all in the hands of Allah."

Sharif is bearded, wears a long white gown and quotes nonstop from the Koran and Hadith (a collection of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad). His Pakistani parents are secular Muslims, he says, and still speak little English. In his youth he smoked and went to nightclubs. It was not until he was a university student in London that he embraced Islam. "Since I have come to Islam, I have a lot of tranquility," he says. Now he tries to steer people away from drugs, drink, crime and smoking. Sharif's supporters refuse to vote in elections because his sect recognizes only Shari'a, not secular law. While he does not openly support terrorism, he says that the July 7 attacks were retaliation for Britain's support of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "The majority of Muslims in the U.K. are frustrated, but they cannot speak," he says. "They will not condone the London bombings, but inside they believe that Britain had it coming."

What's striking about the rhetoric of second-generation radicals like Sharif is how much it differs from the experience of many newer arrivals to Europe. Moroccan Farid Itaiben, 30, who has lived outside Madrid for 10 years, came to Europe to find a job and a more comfortable life. "If we had work at home, believe me, we'd get out of Europe," he says. "We're not here to spread the Word, we're here simply to make a living." Itaiben has no patience for jihadis who come to Europe to fight holy war; his brother, Mohammed, was among those killed by the train blasts in Madrid on March 11, 2004. "Those people," he says, "weren't Muslims who did this thing. How can they call themselves Muslims?"

It's a critical question: how do second- generation European Muslims define themselves? Many say they feel a part neither of the country of their birth, nor of their parents' heritage. That some often live on the dole, unable to find work, only enhances their sense of estrangement. The attitude of Riad, a 32-year-old French citizen who has been unemployed since 2002, is all too common. Sitting in a café in the Lyons suburb of Vénissieux, he says, "They say we are French, and we would like to believe that as well. But do we look like normal French people to you?" His friend Karim, 27, insists they are discriminated against because of their long beards. "Who will give us a job when we look like this? We have to fend for ourselves and find a way out."

That lack of connection to their native societies can be aggravated by extremists. Zaheer Khan, a 30-year-old British Muslim who grew up in Kent in southeast England, says his own experience was fairly common among Muslims of his generation. He was drawn to radical Islam while in college in the mid-1990s, he says. The Wahhabi and Salafist recruiters, he says, "would tell you that things like taking out car insurance is against Islamic principles, or voting — this is haram, forbidden. Slowly, the disengagement [from British society] was there. You didn't say, 'Let's explore what it means to be living in Britain.' This didn't come up."

The feelings Khan had back then — though still devout, he has rejected radical Islam — are wide-spread among second-generation European Muslims. "The problem is that they have no real roots," says Dominique Many, a lawyer for one of the Muslim Frenchmen taken into custody by French officials on suspicion of volunteering to fight against U.S. forces in Iraq. "In Tunisia, they are considered foreigners. In France, they are considered foreigners. This is the new generation of Muslims."

Rootlessness is compounded by economic struggle. On the whole, Muslims in Europe are far more likely to be unemployed than non-Muslims. In Britain, 63% of all children of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, ethnic groups that together account for some 60% of Britain's Muslims, are categorized as poor; the national average is 28%. Affluent Muslims help the radical cause, but the jobless are "the easy marks, the fodder of jihadist networks," as a French law-enforcement source says.

Some of those marks can be found at a youth and job-seeking center set along a canal in the depressed Belgian industrial town of Mechlin, between Brussels and Antwerp. Yassin el-Abdi, 24, an accountant who's been unemployed for three years, recently scanned job listings on a computer and complained bitterly about the extremists in Europe who, in his view, are making a bad situation for Muslims even worse. "These people who are planting the bombs are wrecking things for us," says el-Abdi. But the reality, says el-Abdi's friend, Said Bouazza, who runs the center, is that joblessness among Muslims in Europe can only add to jihadist ranks: "It's like a ticking time bomb. There are people who fight back by opening their own store. Or they plant bombs."

Tough economic times and racial discrimination are age-old triggers of anger and disillusionment. Just a decade ago, many of the youths now taking up the extremist cause might have been more inclined to drift into a life of crime or drug use. The more committed would have had to journey to training camps in Afghanistan and then return to isolated sleeper cells in order to pursue jihad. Now, they don't need to leave home. The Internet has played a huge role in fostering a sense of community among fanatics and those who would join them. It brings jihad to them — instructions on how to build a bomb, for instance, are just a click away. Sayful Islam, 26, formerly a government tax-office employee in Luton, an industrial town 48 km north of London, and then a full-time spokesman for al-Muhajiroun in the area, now concentrates on spreading his radical message among the local youth. "Even if my own family were killed by a jihadi's bomb, I would say it's the will of Allah," he says.

There's little doubt that, in the last two years, the disaffection and anger shared by many young Muslims has coalesced around a single, galvanizing issue: the war in Iraq. Time's reporting across Europe shows that the conflict has had a profoundly radicalizing effect on some Muslims, convincing them that the U.S. and Britain are bent on eradicating Islam, and that the only proper response is to fight back. The sentiment voiced by the head of the Arab European League in Belgium, a radical Muslim named Karim Hassoun, is all too common: "The more body bags of Americans we see coming back from Iraq, the happier we are." A senior French security official says that Iraq "has acted as a formidable booster" for extremist groups.

While the flow of jihadis from Europe to Iraq has not been enormous — probably between 20 and 30 from France, the French security source told Time — a handful have returned home with deadly new skills. French intelligence picked up one young man this summer who "was in the process of setting up an actual network of operatives here in France, and had bomb-making materials for future use." In the Netherlands, where 1 out of every 16 Dutch citizens is a Muslim, it's trendy for kids to hang on their bedroom walls half-burned American flags with Stars of David replacing the five-pointed U.S. ones, says Mohammed Ridouan Jabri, founder of the recently formed Muslim Democratic Party.

Governments in Europe have tried a range of approaches to contain radical Islam. After the July 7 bombings, Blair proposed a zero-tolerance policy toward hateful rhetoric, pledging among other things to deport foreign-born clerics seen to be inciting violence. A terrorism bill, with new measures, is now starting its passage through Parliament and is expected to become law in a few months. But an original proposal to make glorifying terrorism an offence has now been more clearly defined so that such statements must show intention to incite further terrorism. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has launched similar initiatives but has proposed other security laws allowing police to monitor and store e-mail and telephone communications that have civil libertarians howling. And in the Netherlands, where filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim extremist last November, government officials have tried to limit the number of foreign imams preaching in mosques. Earlier this month, the Minister for Immigration and Integration, Rita Verdonk, called for a ban on the burka, the traditional Muslim dress that covers a woman's face and body, on public transport and in government buildings.

Arguably the most important question now is what will happen within Muslim communities in Europe to arrest the unmistakable slouch toward anger and violence.

The enraged minority is in no mood to turn down the heat. At a recent meeting of the radical Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir in Birmingham, the group's spokesman, Imran Waheed, 28, launched into a 40-minute lecture in front of about 80 people, insisting there's no need for the Muslim community to apologize for July 7. Many in the audience nodded in agreement. But some seemed ambivalent, caught between their abhorrence of terrorism and a belief that their grievances are not taken seriously.

After praying with the other men in an adjacent room, a smiling twentysomething in pressed trousers and shirt, with neat round glasses perched on his nose, began by pointing out that Islam forbids violence and the bombing of innocent people. "Our hearts are bleeding for the [July 7 victims]," he said. Then in the next breath, he criticized the U.S. and Britain for ignoring the ways in which their policies may be adding to young Muslims' feelings of alienation. As a result, he says, the members of his generation "are frustrated. Their voices are not being heard." If the world hopes to understand — let alone overcome — the anger that roils Europe's young Muslims, it had better start listening.

• BILL POWELL
• In Europe, alienation, the Internet and anger about the war in Iraq are pushing some young Muslims toward extremism