"Londonistan" is a sobriquet referring to the British capital of London and the growing Muslim population of late-20th- and early-21st-century London.
The word is a portmanteau of the UK's capital and the Persian suffix -stan, meaning "land", used by several countries in South and Central Asia. The term has been used in a number of publications, including The New York Times , [1] Vanity Fair , [2] The Weekly Standard, [3] and in the 2006 book Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within. [4]
According to Omar Nasiri:
The mid- to late 1990s were the years when Britain's capital earned the sobriquet of "Londonistan," a title provided by French officials infuriated at the growing presence of Islamist radicals in London and the failure of British authorities to do anything about it. [...] Raids in France and Belgium had produced phone and fax numbers linked to the United Kingdom, and names of suspects were passed on. Some French officials believe that if more had been done by Britain at the time, the network behind the summer of 1995 bombings might have been broken up and the attacks prevented. [5]
The bombings and attempted bombings, mostly in the French capital of Paris, in the summer and autumn of 1995 by Armed Islamic Group (GIA), killed eight people and injured more than 100. [6] The French observed that a number of Muslim radicals from London had connections to these bombings. [6] Around 1995, the French intelligence had coined the term "Londonistan" for the city of London. [6]
According to critics, the UK's "deep tradition of civil liberties and protection of political activists" led to the country becoming "a crossroads for would-be terrorists" for a decade after the mid-1990s. The Islamists used London "as a home base" to "raise money, recruit members and draw inspiration from the militant messages." [7] The UK Government's perceived unwillingness to prosecute or extradite terrorist suspects provoked tensions with countries in which terrorist attacks occurred. Allegations of a British policy of appeasement of Islamists were made and denied by members of the British Government who debated the issue. [8]
In March 2020, Jonathan Evans, Former Director General, MI5 gave an interview and commented on Londonistan: 'There are various conspiracy theories about the Londonistan period including the notion that Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) in some way gave a free pass to the terrorist sympathizers in the U.K. on the basis that they would not attack us. This is a complete fabrication. The problem was that we didn’t actually know what was going on because we were not looking. There was all sorts of stuff going on that we just were not aware of. It was not that we were deliberately turning a blind eye, just that we had not noticed'. [9]
The term has been linked to the similar Islamophobic conspiracy theory of Eurabia. [10] [11] [12]
In September 2023, Conservative Party candidate for the 2024 London mayoral election Susan Hall was reported to have liked a tweet that described London's mayor Sadiq Khan as "our nipple height mayor of Londonistan". [13]
With the election of Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London, Richard Seymour wrote an essay in Al Jazeera headlined "Sadiq Khan's victory and free Londonistan", claiming that the term Londonistan was being "joyfully, ironically appropriated by those who are glad to see a racist campaign defeated. Welcome to the 21st century. Welcome to free Londonistan." [14]
Al-Qaeda is a pan-Islamist militant organization led by Sunni Jihadists who self-identify as a vanguard spearheading a global Islamist revolution to unite the Muslim world under a supra-national Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Its membership is mostly composed of Arabs, but also includes people from other ethnic groups. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian, economic and military targets of the US and its allies; such as the 1998 US embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing and the September 11 attacks. The organization is designated as a terrorist group by NATO, UN Security Council, the European Union, and various countries around the world.
The Society of the Muslim Brothers, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings spread far beyond Egypt, influencing today various Islamist movements from charitable organizations to political parties.
Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Omar Bakri Muhammad is a Syrian Islamist militant leader born in Aleppo. He was instrumental in developing Hizb ut-Tahrir in the United Kingdom before leaving the group and heading to another Islamist organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, until its disbandment in 2004.
Al-Muhajiroun is a proscribed militant network based in Saudi Arabia. The founder of the group was Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian who previously belonged to Hizb ut-Tahrir; he was not permitted to re-enter Britain after 2005. According to The Times, the organisation has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia, and antisemitism. The group became notorious for its September 2002 conference "The Magnificent 19", praising the September 11, 2001 attacks. The network mutates periodically so as to evade the law; it operates under many different aliases.
Anjem Choudary is a Pakistani-British Islamist and a social and political activist who has been described as "the face" of militant Islamism or the "best known" Islamic extremist in Britain.
Sadiq Aman Khan is a British politician serving as Mayor of London since 2016. He was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Tooting from 2005 until 2016. A member of the Labour Party, Khan is on the party's soft left and has been ideologically characterised as a social democrat.
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, also referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamist terrorists that targeted commuters travelling on London's public transport during the morning rush hour.
Mohammad Sidique Khan was a Pakistani-British terrorist and the oldest of the four Islamist suicide bombers and believed to be the leader responsible for the 7 July 2005 London bombings, in which bombs were detonated on three London Underground trains and one bus in central London, suicide attacks, killing 56 people including the attackers and injuring over 700. Khan bombed the Edgware Road train, killing himself and six other people.
Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within is a 2006 best-selling book by the British journalist Melanie Phillips about the spread of Islamism in the United Kingdom over the previous twenty years. The book was published in London by Encounter Books.
Terrorism in the United Kingdom, according to the Home Office, poses a significant threat to the state. There have been various causes of terrorism in the UK. Before the 2000s, most attacks were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict. In the late 20th century there were also attacks by Islamic terrorist groups. Since 1970, there have been at least 3,395 terrorist-related deaths in the UK, the highest in western Europe. The vast majority of the deaths were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict and happened in Northern Ireland. In mainland Great Britain, there were 430 terrorist-related deaths between 1971 and 2001. Of these, 125 deaths were linked to the Northern Ireland conflict, and 305 deaths were linked to other causes, including 270 in the Lockerbie bombing. Since 2001, there have been almost 100 terrorist-related deaths in Great Britain.
Jihadi tourism, also referred to as jihad tourism or jihadist tourism, is a term sometimes used to describe travel to foreign destinations with the object of scouting for terrorist training. US diplomatic cables leaked in 2010 have raised concerns about this form of travel. Within intelligence circles, the term is also sometimes applied dismissively to travellers who are assumed to be seeking contact with extremist groups mainly out of curiosity.
Islamism has existed in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, and has become widely visible and a topic of political discourse since the beginning of the 21st century.
Islamic terrorism in Europe has been carried out by the Islamic State (ISIL) or Al-Qaeda as well as Islamist lone wolves since the late 20th century. Europol, which releases the annual EU Terrorism Situation and Trend report (TE-SAT), used the term "Islamist terrorism" in the years 2006–2010, "religiously inspired terrorism" 2011–2014, and has used "jihadist terrorism" since 2015. Europol defines jihadism as "a violent ideology exploiting traditional Islamic concepts".
On 22 March 2017, a terrorist attack took place outside the Palace of Westminster in London, seat of the British Parliament. Khalid Masood, a 52-year-old Briton, drove a car into pedestrians on the pavement along the south side of Westminster Bridge and Bridge Street, injuring more than 50 people, four of them fatally. He then crashed the car into the perimeter fence of the palace grounds and ran into New Palace Yard, where he fatally stabbed an unarmed police officer. He was then shot by an armed police officer, and died at the scene.
On 3 June 2017, a terrorist vehicle-ramming and stabbing took place in London, England. A van was deliberately driven into pedestrians on London Bridge, and then crashed on Borough High Street, just south of the River Thames. The van's three occupants then ran to the nearby Borough Market area and began stabbing people in and around restaurants and pubs. They were shot dead by Metropolitan Police and City of London Police authorised firearms officers, and were found to be wearing fake explosive vests. Eight people were killed and 48 were injured, including members of the public and four unarmed police officers who attempted to stop the assailants. British authorities described the perpetrators as "radical Islamist terrorists".
On 19 June 2017, an Islamophobic terrorist attack occurred in Finsbury Park, London, England, when a van was intentionally driven into a crowd of Muslim pedestrians near the Muslim Welfare House, 100 yards (90 m) from the Finsbury Park Mosque, causing 1 death and injuring 11 people. The attack was found to be motivated by Islamophobia.
On 29 November 2019, five people were stabbed, two fatally, in Central London. The attacker, Usman Khan, had been released from prison in 2018 on licence after serving a sentence for terrorist offences.
Usman Khan, also known as Abu Saif, was an Islamic terrorist of Pakistani-British nationality who, in 2012, received a conviction for planning a terrorist attack. On 29 November 2019, following a knife attack near London Bridge that resulted in two deaths and three injuries, Khan was fatally shot by City of London Police after being subdued by civilians.
Operation Guava is the code name for a long-term British Security Service (MI5) operation. The operation tracked a terrorist cell, which planned "a significant terrorist plot." The Operation Guava plotters used the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula magazine Inspire as an instruction manual for the bomb they planned to leave in a toilet stall at the London Stock Exchange. The police code name for the investigation was Operation Norbury.
