Must listen: Ex-jihadi Hassan Butt talks terror and Islam with NPR

You’re looking for the extended interview. Things get interesting starting at about 8 minutes in when he explains the importance of Islamic theology in jihadi recruitment and then again at 11:30 when he talks about his alienation from the ideology. But the can’t-miss segment is at 13:40 with the exchange about updating Islam for modern times and countering the denialist current that leads to nonsense about the “tiny minority of extremists.” Stay with it until the end, noting what he says about curiosity-seekers looking to fanatics for answers when moderates tell them to stop asking questions. Assuming, that is, they’re able to communicate with them at all.

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Then read Yon and see where it leads:

Speaking through an American interpreter, Lieutenant David Wallach who is a native Arabic speaker, the Iraqi official related how al Qaeda united these gangs who then became absorbed into “al Qaeda.” They recruited boys born during the years 1991, 92 and 93 who were each given weapons, including pistols, a bicycle and a phone (with phone cards paid) and a salary of $100 per month, all courtesy of al Qaeda. These boys were used for kidnapping, torturing and murdering people.

At first, he said, they would only target Shia, but over time the new al Qaeda directed attacks against Sunni, and then anyone who thought differently. The official reported that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance, the family had a boy, he said, who was about 11-years-old. As LT David Wallach interpreted the man’s words, I saw Wallach go blank and silent. He stopped interpreting for a moment. I asked Wallach, “What did he say?” Wallach said that at these luncheons, the families were sat down to eat. And then their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family.

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