Stockholm bomber was radicalised in Britain

The latest diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, highlighting US concerns over Muslim extremism in the UK, come amid claims that the Stockholm suicide bomber Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly became radicalised after studying in Britain.
 
The Iraqi-born Swede, who blew himself up in a crowded Stockholm shopping centre at the weekend, showed little interest in religion while growing up in Sweden but is said to have changed when he moved to England to study in 2001. By the time of his death on Saturday, he had even named his son Osama, after the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to the Sun.
 
Abdulwahab studied at the University of Bedfordshire and graduated with a physical therapy degree in 2004. He then settled in the area but three years later was banned from his local mosque because of his extremist views. It has also been claimed that he preached at his old university in 2007, while he is said to have travelled to Yemen at around the same time.
 
The case of Abdulwahab appears to chime with the concerns of US diplomats highlighted in the WikiLeaks cables published by the Guardian today.

In one message, written shortly after the liquid bomb plot arrests in August 2006, a diplomat at the US embassy in London wrote: "Since 7/7, HMG has invested considerable time and resources in engaging the British Muslim community... The current tensions demonstrate just how little progress has been made."
 
The message also revealed the concerns of senior Muslim figures over the government's attempts to deal with extremism.

The diplomat wrote: "Labour MP Sadiq Khan said the community feels 'let down' by HMG efforts to date, particularly the 'Preventing Extremism Together' task forces, which the Home Office created after the 7/7 attacks. Very few of the 64 measures recommended by Muslim leaders on the task force have been implemented, Khan said, creating an 'air of despondency' and leading the community to believe that the entire exercise was just a publicity stunt."
 
Other cables from the US embassy in Nairobi last year express concerns that British citizens of Somalian origin were involved in 'jihadi tourism' to East Africa. Those missives also raised concerns about the possibility of a ‘Mumbai-style attack’ in the UK and over security at the 2012 Olympics.
 
Details of Abdulwahab's radicalisation in Luton have emerged from leaders at a mosque he attended in the town, who have blamed the internet for his views. Farasat Latif, the secretary of the Luton Islamic Centre, said that when he began preaching his radical views Abdulwahab was told "that his ideas were incorrect".
 
Latif said: "One day during morning prayers in the month of Ramadan – there were about 100 people there – the chairman of the mosque stood up and exposed him, warning against terrorism, suicide bombings and so on. He [Abdulwahab] knew it was directed at him. He stormed out of the mosque." ·