Mr Howells said: “I was part of a Government that said, ‘Well, we don’t do God.’ But you can’t afford not to do God on this one, I think.
“These people aren’t motivated – not on the most part, anyway – by money or some kind of nationalism. It’s different from the IRA.
“These people are prepared to kill themselves and they do it because they think it’s a shortcut to paradise... Unless people have enough courage to take that on and try and convince young people that the Caliphate is not a better way of running society than a democracy they are going to be lured to these organisations.”
Whole communities have a vital role to play in ensuring that the conditions in which violent radicalisation can thrive no longer develop here.
This is why it is essential that extremists do not succeed in provoking responses that will only result in the isolation of Muslims from wider society. Scapegoating will only make it harder to engage in vital conversations and build trust.
A sense of persecution will make it more difficult to confront the notion put forward by militant groups that Islam and the West are at war. [WalesOnline] Read more
