英国是怎么开始输出恐怖分子的？-道格拉斯·穆瑞

【美国记者詹姆斯·弗莱遭恐怖分子毒手的画面令人震惊。凶手的英国国籍更是让欧洲国家坐立不安。不过源自英国的伊斯兰圣战分子却并不是最近才突然才冒出来的。英国时评人道格拉斯·穆瑞详细回顾了近20年有关英国籍伊斯兰圣战分子的案例。原文发表于《旁观者》（The Spectator）网站，原题“Britain’s beheaders —— how we came to export jihad”，观察者网李晽译。】

这是一张最近人们所熟悉的梦魇般的图片。一名下跪的俘虏，在他身后，一名穿戴黑色罩帽的男子对着摄像机讲话。站着的男子指责西方并且宣称他所信仰的那种伊斯兰正在遭到攻击。随后他对人质执行了斩首。为什么周三这部早晨的影像会如此受人瞩目？因为这回的俘虏是一名美国记者——詹姆斯·弗莱——而且谋杀他的人毫无疑问说的是一口伦敦腔。

作者道格拉斯·穆瑞《旁观者》博客截图

近期伊斯兰主义者暴行所引起的强烈反响毫无疑问是可以理解的。不过，这并非是一次性的偶发事件，当然也并不能说是反常现象。倒不如说这是一种完全可预见潮流的延续。英国长久以来恐怖事件输出的中心，正如美国政府高官表明的那样：下一次针对美国本土的攻击有可能来自英国公民。所有国家——从澳大利亚到斯堪的纳维亚——都和伊斯兰极端主义者关系不佳。不过如果整个世界怀疑英国已经成为国际反圣战主义中薄弱环节的话，那么这么说并没有什么太大的过错。一名来自伦敦的英国人斩首美国记者，类似事件甚至并非首次出现。

2002年，27岁的奥马尔·沙克在巴基斯坦逗留。作为一名生于伦敦北部的私立学校和伦敦经济学院的毕业生，他于20世纪90年代奋战在巴尔干和克什米尔。94年，他因涉嫌在印度绑架三名英国人和一名美国人而遭到逮捕。为了挽救印度航空航班IC-814的机组人员和旅客，作为交易，奥马尔于94年得到释放。随后他又涉嫌于2002年一月在加尔各答，实施了美国文化中心的爆炸案，还于同月策划了绑架《华尔街日报》记者丹尼尔·珀尔并随后将其斩首。

如果回到那时，人们也许还可以说，奥马尔·沙克不过就是个一次性的偶发事件——一桩恐怖的意外。到底有多少生于伦敦的学生参与到伊斯兰极端主义中去或者接受激进伊斯兰布道者的影响，奥马尔的母校对这些并不理会。这种不理会虽然后来变得更难于维持了——不过校方还是继续不理会——甚至当两名英国人，21岁，来自豪恩斯洛的阿斯夫·哈尼夫和27岁的奥马尔·汗·沙立夫——他们实施了位于特拉维夫码头区一家酒吧的自杀性炸弹袭击的时候。奥马尔·沙立夫曾经是伦敦国王学院的学生，国王学院就坐落在伦敦证券交易所对面。这场袭击造成3名以色列人丧生，超过50人受伤，哈马斯宣称对这一事件负责。

随着英国出生的圣战分子人数逐渐增长，他们的行动也随之和英国本土发生更为紧密的关联。2005年7月7日，英国出生的穆斯林第一次制造了在英国本土自杀性炸弹袭击事件。两星期以后，又发生了4起自杀性炸弹袭击未遂事件。2009年圣诞节，伦敦大学学院的伊斯兰社团领袖在一架飞机于底特律着陆时，试图起爆一枚炸弹。去年，两名伊斯兰教改宗者在伦敦南部于光天化日之下将鼓手李·瑞格比斩首。必须值得注意的是，上述只不过是那些最受到广泛关注的案件。不过被优秀安全部门或者纯然运气所忽视的案例数量令人震惊。除开持续的定罪结案，每年至少尚有一件大规模针对英国公众的暴行企图被忽视。至于小规模的暴行企图就更不用说了。大家都还记得对李·瑞格比的谋杀，可是还有几人记得帕维斯·汗位于伯明翰的恐怖分子监狱？由于之前曾绑架一名英国穆斯林士兵并将其斩首，汗于2008年被判有罪。

所有的这些时间，随着圣战分子人数的增长，他们可以进行训练的场所也在增加。预计有4000人从英国前往阿富汗接受训练或是加入战斗。根据其他来源，英国公民前往叙利亚和伊拉克参战的人数预计可能在500到1500人之间。如果如果前面那个较大的数据是正确的话，这个人数规模将会比当前在英国武装力量中服役的穆斯林人数还要多。其中的一些圣战分子从国外返回；还有一些则在战斗中被杀。不过现在明确的是，无论我们喜欢还是不喜欢，这都是英国的大问题。

极端分子对叙利亚战事的参与正在英国境内扩散。类似于其他的一些冲突，在叙利亚参加战斗的英国人似乎——正如杀死詹姆斯·弗莱的凶手那样——来自伦敦。这和其他的一些情况是一致的，包括联合王国境内有据可查的恐怖主义判决，这些判决表明过去十年内，针对英国本土的近半数受伊斯兰极端主义而引发的恐怖袭击，都是由被捕时居住在伦敦的一些个人所犯下的。

不过上述对叙利亚战事的参与同时正在向伯明翰和其他一些拥有大量穆斯林人口的地方扩散，以及一些会让广大民众感到吃惊的一些区域。今年二月份，有消息称，来自西苏塞克斯郡克罗利的阿卜杜拉·瓦利德·马吉德成为了一名自杀性炸弹袭击者。2月6日，还有一名英国人针对叙利亚阿勒颇的一处监狱，制造了一起卡车炸弹袭击事件，这名英国人却并不说阿拉伯语。

5月份，一名据信是来自伦敦的英国人在社交媒体Instagram上，发布了叙利亚境内圣战分子的战争罪行，其中就包括谋杀一名据信是巴沙尔·阿萨德支持者的囚犯。其中一名向俘虏发射子弹的人已经被确认为一名英国人，这名英国人在另外一部视频中还严厉指责英国穆斯林没有为圣战提供足够的支持。“你知道你是谁”，他说道，“从首都、中部到北部，无论你可能处于何处……这都是耻辱，兄弟们知道这些主妇们在哪里，这些家庭在哪里，但你们仍然为你们的子侄购买PS4或者带着他们去Nando餐厅。”

伊拉克与黎凡特伊斯兰国中出现大量来自欧洲的成员，这令欧洲国家惊恐万分

这样一份名单还在继续不断增添着名字。有来自卡迪夫的年轻人。还有一些来自普兹茅斯。这个月的早些时期，来自伦敦西部的阿卜杜勒-马吉德·阿卜杜勒·巴里出现在一张他发布在推特上的照片里。在图中，他拎着一颗被斩下的头颅，自己还为图片配了一个标题“和我的老伙计一起放松，或者和他剩下的部分一起”。这是叙利亚成为英国圣战分子奇怪联接的部分表现而已——一种街头耍酷、伊斯兰极端主义和极度残暴的混合。甚至这些人在社交媒体上进行交流的语言方式也是令人熟悉的。例如来自普兹茅斯19岁的马蒂·哈桑，发布了自己的一张媒体图片，手中拿着一罐慕斯，以此来安慰前来的英国人，他们不会缺少乐子。

当然，有一类说法声称如果我们只要离开所有这些地方，那么所有的这些就不会奔着我们来了。但是我们离开了巴尔干却创造了整整一代的圣战分子。我们还没有离开阿富汗和伊拉克——却已经创造了另一代的圣战分子。如今我们很大程度上已经离开了叙利亚——瞧瞧看，我们大概又创造了一个圣战分子的世代。很显然，无论离开还是不离开，你都被诅咒了。不过很明显，很少有人似乎意识到了这一切并不是真的与我们有关。

尽管如此，这些事情还从未像今天这般离本土如此之近。近几周，伊拉克与黎凡特伊斯兰国所使用的黑色圣战旗帜公开地在伦敦飘扬——伊拉克与黎凡特伊斯兰国的支持者已经在牛津街头出现——以及在其他的一些地方。就在这周，一座威尔士主要清真寺的伊玛目决定辞职，之前一名亲伊拉克与黎凡特伊斯兰国的布道者受邀在这座清真寺发表演讲。

这场战斗正在这个国家的家庭与清真寺里持续进行着。我们害怕把这些点连接起来。比起进行反击，我们更为惧怕来自国际社会的批评。

这个曾带给世界大部分地方以自由的国度，如今正在向世界的大部地方出口恐怖主义。这周斩首视频令人难过，如果我们不想未来再继续出现更多这类恐怖主义影像的话，那么英国需要进行自我反省，并且致力于解决这一问题。

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It is the now familiar nightmare image. A kneeling prisoner, and behind him a black-hooded man speaking to camera. The standing man denounces the West and claims that his form of Islam is under attack. He then saws off the head of the hostage. Why did Wednesday morning’s video stand out? Because this time the captive was an American journalist —James Foley— and his murderer is speaking in an unmistakable London accent.

The revulsion with which this latest Islamist atrocity has been greeted is of course understandable. But it is also surprising. This is no one-off, certainly no anomaly. Rather it is the continuation of an entirely foreseeable trend. Britain has long been a global hub of terror export, so much so that senior US government officials have suggested the next attack on US soil is likely to come from UK citizens. All countries — from Australia to Scandinavia — now have a problem with Islamic extremists. But the world could be forgiven for suspecting that Britain has become the weak link in the international fight against jihadism. And they would be right. This is not even the first beheading of an American journalist to have been arranged by a British man from London.

In 2002, 27-year-old Omar Sheikh was in Pakistan. A north London-born graduate of a private school and the London School of Economics, he had gone to fight in the Balkans and Kashmir in the 1990s. In 1994 he was arrested and jailed for his involvement in the kidnapping of three Britons and an American in India. Released in 1999 in exchange for the passengers and crew of the hijacked Air India flight IC-814, he was subsequently connected to the bombing of an American cultural centre in Calcutta in January 2002 and that same month organised the kidnapping and beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Back then it was possible to dismiss Omar Sheikh as a one-off — a macabre fluke. His alma mater shrugged off concerns about the number of London-based students who had got involved in Islamic extremism or the radical preachers touring the country. The shrug became a little harder to maintain — though maintained it was — the next year when two British men — Asif Hanif, 21, from Hounslow in west London and Omar Khan Sharif, 27 — carried out a suicide bombing in a bar on the waterfront in Tel Aviv. Omar Sharif had been a student of King’s College London, just across the road from LSE. That time the glory of killing three Israelis and wounding over 50 was claimed by the terrorist group Hamas.

As the list of British-born jihadists grew, their activities also got closer to home. On 7 July 2005, British-born Muslims carried out the first suicide bombings on British soil, with four more attempted a fortnight later. On Christmas Day 2009, the former head of the Islamic Society at University College London attempted to explode a bomb on a plane as it landed in Detroit. Last year, two converts decapitated Drummer Lee Rigby in broad daylight in south London. It is important to keep in mind that these are just the most high-profile cases. But the list of cases which were thwarted by good security work or sheer luck is astonishing. As well as the constant stream of convictions, at least one large-scale mass atrocity attempt on the lives of the British public was thwarted each year. As were smaller attempts. Everybody still remembers the killing of Lee Rigby, but how many people recall the case of Parviz Khan’s Birmingham terrorist cell? Khan was convicted in 2008 for a plot the previous year to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier on video.

All the while, as the list of jihadists grew, so did the number of places where they could train. Perhaps as many as 4,000 people from Britain are thought to have gone to train or fight in Afghanistan. Estimates of the number of British citizens who have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq range from just over 500 to 1,500 (a figure from Khalid Mahmood, a Birmingham Labour MP). If the larger figure is correct, it would be significantly higher than the number of Muslims currently serving in Britain’s armed forces. Some of these jihadists have returned; some have been killed fighting. But it is now obvious that whether we like it or not, this is Britain’s problem.

Involvement in Syria spreads across Britain. As with other conflicts, a large proportion of the Brits going to fight in Syria appear to be — like the murderer of James Foley — from London. This is in line with other work, including a list of all terrorism convictions in the UK to date, which shows that almost half of Islamism-inspired terrorism offences and attacks on UK soil over the last decade were perpetrated by individuals living in London at the time of their arrest.

But involvement in the Syrian conflict has also spread to Birmingham and other places with large Muslim populations, as well as some places that will have surprised the wider public. In February of this year it transpired that the 41-year-old Abdul Waheed Majid from Crawley, West Sussex, had become a suicide bomber. On 6 February the non-Arabicspeaking Brit carried out a truck-bombing against a jail in Aleppo, Syria.

In May, the Instagram account of a British man believed to be from London shows other jihadist war crimes from Syria, including the killing of a prisoner believed to be a loyalist of President Bashar al-Assad. One of the people shooting bullets into their captive is identified as a British man who in another video berates British Muslims for not providing enough support to the jihad. ‘You know who you are,’ he says, ‘from the capital, the Midlands, up north, wherever you may be… it’s a disgrace, that brothers know where these wives are, where these families are, and yet you are buying your nephew or your child a PlayStation 4 or taking them out to Nando’s.’

The list goes on. A cell of young men from Cardiff. Others from Portsmouth. Earlier this month, Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary from west London appeared in a photo he himself posted on Twitter. He is pictured holding a severed head with the caption ‘chillin’ with my homie, or what’s left of him’. This is all part of the strange juncture that Syria has become for British jihadis — a meld of street cool, Islamic extremism and ultra-violence. Even the register in which these men communicate on social media is familiar. For instance Madhi Hassan, 19, from Portsmouth, sent out a media image of himself holding a jar of Nutella, to reassure Brits coming over that they would not lack all comforts.

Of course, one line of argument claims that if we just left all these places alone then none of this would come to us. But we left the Balkans alone and created one generation of jihadists. Then we didn’t leave Afghanistan and Iraq alone — and created another generation of jihadists. Now we have very much left Syria alone — and lo and behold, we seem to have created another jihadist generation. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, apparently. Yet remarkably few people seem to realise that this isn’t really about us.

Nevertheless, it comes ever closer to home. In recent weeks the black flag of jihad as used by Isis has been flown openly in London — supporters of Isis have appeared on Oxford Street — and elsewhere. Just this week, the imam of a leading Welsh mosque resigned after a pro-Isis guest preacher was invited to speak at his mosque.

This battle is going on in households and mosques up and down this country. We fear joining up these dots. And we fear giving offence more than we fear the international opprobrium that is coming our way.

The country that brought liberty to much of the world is now exporting terrorism to large parts of it. Britain needs to look to itself, and address this problem, if there are not to be many more videos like this week’s.