London Terrorist Followed a Twisted Path From Prison to Jihad

Before he drove violently into the crowd on Westminster Bridge, before plunging the knives into the police officer's body, Khalid Masood's twisted path into terrorism followed an all too familiar pattern from petty crimes to prison radicalization, to violent jihadist.
Radical Islamist terrorism once again struck innocent victims in Europe, this time killing four people in London and injuring at least 50 more.    
The emerging profile of the terrorist, Khalid Masood, also paints an all too familiar image of a jihadist bent on killing as many people as possible on the path to paradise.

Khalid Masood

Masood, a 52-year-old UK native, was born on Christmas day in Kent as Adrian Elms and was raised as a Christian. He was known as an intelligent student and an excelling athlete during his time in Huntley School for Boys. He spiraled downward from there, starting with a 1983 arrest for property damage. He spent at least two periods in three different HMPS correctional facilities, including for assault.

It was there in prison where he was believed to have been radicalized.              

An alarming number of terror plots and attacks involve people who started out as criminals, were radicalized in prison, and then re-entered society bent on killing in the name of Allah. The 2010 New York State Police Vigilance Report found that almost 50 percent of people charted with terrorist-related crimes had prior contact with the criminal justice system. The Paris and Brussels attacks were in part carried out by former inmates. The Berlin, Copenhagen, and Toulouse attacks were similarly committed by individuals radicalized in prison.

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IPT Senior Fellow Patrick Dunleavy Discusses Judicial Overreach and NYPD Surveillance Abilities

IPT Senior Fellow Patrick Dunleavy talks with former White House staffer Frank Gaffney on about his recent article, "New York Cedes Ground in Fight Against Terrorism." Under a pending court agreement, the NYPD's Intelligence Division investigations will be controlled by a civilian monitor appointed by Mayor DeBlasio.

The mayor has in the past praised domestic terrorist groups like the FALN

He also discusses recent judicial action against POTUS immigration policy

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NYC Mayor Gives Up Ground Gained By NYPD Against Terrorists

Capitulation in a time of conflict is demoralizing to the rank and file charged with protecting the community they serve. This appears to be the case in the latest legal go round between the New York Police Department (NYPD) and Muslim activist groups.

U.S. District Judge Charles S. Haight Jr, is about to accept an agreement that will hand over control of the NYPD's Intelligence Division investigations to a civilian monitor appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio. This is the same mayor who loudly cheered President Obama's last-minute commutation of FALN terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera, who will be freed in May. De Blasio extolled the works of a man whose organization was responsible for more than 100 bombings, many in New York City, including one that killed four innocent people.
To understand the impact that this proposed settlement, between the NYPD, and the activist organization known as the Muslim Advocates will have on existing counter terrorism measures, we have to understand how vitally important is the issue of protecting cities against attacks by radical Islamist terrorists. The activist groups claim that the police department unfairly singled out Muslim communities in the greater New York/New Jersey area for investigation and surveillance. They also claim that gathering specific information about the neighborhoods amounted to unprecedented "profiling." They point to a little known NYPD unit that collected the data and accuse it of spying.

Their argument belies the fact that collecting demographic statistics has been used for years by the U.S. Census Bureau to map out trends and changes in neighborhoods. Law enforcement agencies nationwide have used this practice for decades to investigate criminal organizations such as the Mafia, or Columbian drug cartels. The normal investigative process would include forensic examination of the communities most likely to be victimized by criminal organizations. The FBI did not set up surveillance in Chinatown when taking down the Cosa Nostra. They went to Little Italy.

Radical Islamist organizations have in the past infiltrated Muslim neighborhoods in the United States and exerted harmful influence on those communities.

 
Yet  groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) seek to portray law enforcement as sinister characters sneaking through neighborhoods in trench coats looking to do harm to the community. One chapter urged community members to "Build a Wall of Resistance" and not cooperate with investigators in ongoing terrorist investigations. Nothing could be further from the truth.         

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