Woolwich murder: what drove two men to butcher a soldier in the street?
• How men were radicalised is focus of counter-terror officials
• Cleric tells how convert Adebolajo was given special attention
• 29-year-old seen at Kenya mosque frequented by ‘white widow’
As the nightmare first seconds of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale’s attack on Lee Rigby unfolded, there was a sign before them of how far they had strayed from their adopted religion.
They believed murdering a British soldier would please Allah and be a strike against the foreign policy of the west.
They drove a car into Rigby, catapulting him on to the bonnet. To the zealots, Rigby was an enemy they were about to behead and butcher.
But to Saraj Miah, a Muslim man who happened to be nearby, who was wearing a white prayer cap as a sign of his devoutness, Rigby was a human being in desperate trouble.
Miah had been smoking a cigarette outside a shop in Woolwich, south London, when he saw Adebolajo exit the car with a cleaver in his hand and slash at the neck of a man on the ground, as Adebowale stabbed at the body.
Miah was the first person to try to save Rigby, shouting “don’t kill him” at the attackers. To ward Miah off, one aimed a gun, forcing him to back away.
How Adebolajo and Adebowale became radicalised to point that they wanted to butcher a man in broad daylight did not form part of the court case. But it is the crucial issue facing the government, the counter-terrorism establishment and communities across Britain, an issue they have been grappling with since the modern age of terrorism began in the mass bloodshed of the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001.
Adebolajo and Adebowale are the first al-Qaida-inspired terrorists in Britain to plot murder, kill their victim, and survive to answer questions.
What emerges from a search for what drove them is a complex mix of a battle to control Islam’s teachings, extremists in Britain and Africa, the internet, the attackers’ personalities and how they interpret the modern world around them.
The story of Rigby’s murderers shows that the ideology of violent jihad retains the power to capture young Britons and render them capable of savage acts, of which they are proud.
After the murder Adebolajo and Adebowale did not attempt to flee but remained at the scene and tried to turn modern technology – smartphones with cameras – into a tool of propaganda. They posed for pictures before Adebolajo talked into cameras and justified the slaughter, his hands covered with blood from his victim.
Then Adebolajo, 29, and his accomplice, Michael Adebowale, 22, rushed armed officers as they arrived, brandishing the knives and cleaver, as well as an unloaded gun. They claimed they wanted the officers to shoot them dead and thus become martyrs.
They were shot and wounded, detained and taken to hospital. During police interviews and then before the jury that convicted him, Adebolajo told how he picked his target at random, viewed himself as a soldier, and calculated the degree of suffering to inflict on his victim.
Just after …read more
