Europe jihadist push goes underground

By William Maclean

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Prisons and private homes have taken over from mosques as recruiting hubs for Islamist radicals in Europe, a shift that cannot be tackled simply by short-term government security measures, an academic said on Wednesday.

Under pressure from state surveillance and disapproval from local communities, activists who once trawled high-profile mosques for recruits increasingly use more discreet venues including makeshift prayer halls and bookshops, said Peter Neumann, a political scientist at Kings College, London. "This pattern of withdrawal from open agitation is consistent across Western Europe," said Neumann, author of "Joining al Qaeda," a report on radicalisation in Europe published by an independent British-based think-tank.

"A lot of open activities that used to go on at mosques are now taking place in private flats and apartments, as mosques themselves become more vigilant and clamp down," he said in an interview on the sidelines of a security conference in Belgium.

"It's been driven underground. It's much more difficult for people like Abu Hamza to be operating out in the open, although it doesn't mean they have gone away," he told Reuters.

He was referring to Abu Hamza al-Masri, a firebrand Muslim preacher who acted as a magnet for radicals drawn to his mosque in north London in the 1990s, an easy surveillance target for police watching out for such activities.

Abu Hamza is serving a seven-year jail term for inciting his followers to violence.

PRISON GANGS

Radical Islamist recruitment is a concern around Europe because law enforcement agencies believe several thousand young Muslims on the continent are part of networks similar to the ones that carried out suicide bombings in London that killed 52 people in 2005 and bombings in Madrid that killed 191 in 2004.