Was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab radicalized in London?

[frigidmagi]

CSMonitor

[quote]For young Muslims especially, London is a city like no other. It is a mecca for jobs and education and provides freedom from the prying eyes of family back home. The grand metropolis also beckons as a bastion of religious freedom and as a refuge from corrupt home country politics.

And with roughly 600,000 Muslim residents hailing from all corners of the Islamic world, it's a place where virtually every flavor of Europe's fastest growing religion can be studied and discussed.

That was the world that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – the young Nigerian accused of seeking to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas –immersed himself in as a student between 2005 and 2008, when the petri dish of political Islam in London was stirring strongly.

For at least a decade sub-cultures of radical thought that promote borderless Islam and an uncompromising return to Sharia law have flourished in Great Britain’s capital – despite some reportedly effective efforts to tamp down extremist views, and despite worries among moderate London Muslims about the trend.

“There are basically two meccas,â€