European MP: No 'Silver Bullet' On Terrorism

Syed Kamall, a British member of the European Parliament, and a Muslim, was in Brussels during yesterday’s terrorist attacks.

He tells Here & Now’s Robin Young that the radicalization of  young Muslims must be tackled at all levels.

“There’s no silver bullet, you can’t solve this problem with one simple strategy,” Kamall said. “You’ve got to tackle it at the international level with intelligence and diplomacy. You’ve got to tackle it within our countries with rule of law and defense of our values. But we’ve also got to make sure we’ve got strategies to help local community projects that try and stop young people from being radicalized.”

Kamall says he works with a local project in London called the Unity of Faiths Foundation that reaches out to children through soccer, and finds that “potential terrorists” are trying to recruit some of the children.

Kamall says ISIS tries to recruit young people by making them believe Muslims in the West are victims.

He said he met a girl through the soccer program who described how she was being recruited.

“They would just send her via social media examples of Muslims being attacked in the UK. they would say, ‘Do you feel safe in the UK? Why don’t you come to a safer place,'” Kamall said. “There is this idea of trying to make you feel like a victim. One of the psychologists I work with on the soccer project said what you’ve got to do is give them a different narrative.”

Guest

• Syed Kamall, member of the European Parliament, who chairs its European Conservatives and Reformists Group. He tweets @SyedKamall.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.