Terror town

A nondescript house in a quite residential street in the town of Luton became the center of the world's media's attention late last year. From there, family man Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly packed his bag and left for Sweden, where he blew himself up near Christmas shoppers in central Stockholm.

Al-Abdaly failed in what he said was his mission: to kill Swedish civilians as revenge for Sweden's involvement in Afghanistan. He left a taped recording saying he hoped Allah would accept him as a martyr.

Before he left his home in Luton, al-Abdaly had worshipped at the town's Islamic Centre, where he had also spread his own extremist view of Islam. He was confronted by the Islamic Centre's chairman, Abdul Qadeer Baksh.

"He was spreading his misinterpretation of the religion, some extreme views," Baksh says.

"So I confronted him and set him straight. This went on about two or three times. I decided that one day after morning prayers I would just confront him in front of everybody and he got quite upset at the end of it and he just stormed out of the mosque, and I never saw him again"

Anti-Islam movement

The Stockholm bomber was the latest of several Islamist extremists giving Luton a bad name. In spring 2009 a small group of Muslim men shouted abuse during a homecoming parade in the town for British soldiers returning from Iraq.

The men carried placards calling on Muslims to rise against British oppression, and shouted at the soldiers calling them butchers, extremists and killers. This spurned an anti-Islam movement in Luton, now known as the extreme-right English Defence League, or EDL, which has supporters throughout Britain.

These episodes have led to British and international media branding Luton a "hotbed of extremism". Yet many people living here feel this is deeply unfair. Zafar Kahn is the chair of Luton's Council of Faiths, a pan-religions group working for community cohesion. He says extremists on both sides are very few in number.

"Unfortunately over the past number of years it has been blown out of proportion. And sometimes the focus of both the policy makers and also of the media has been on this tiny minority, because they have the tendency to shout very loudly," Kahn says.

"Of course there are problems, and these problems are perhaps not necessarily problems that emanate from Luton. Unfortunately we've had one or two incidents in which Luton figured. For instance 7/7, the people who committed the crime of blowing up these underground trains in 2005. They passed through Luton, that was their connection. And one or two other people were also quite transient."

'Excellent place to live'

In Luton's Bury Park area, where many of the town's 30,000 or so Muslims live, many say they don't recognise the way their town or their religion is being portrayed in the media.

"Getting your own idea of Islam just from watching TV is just a lack of knowledge and a bit of arrogance," says Faisal, a young man in traditional Islamic clothing buying fruit outside the Islamic Centre.

"Luton is just a normal large Muslim community - for me it's an excellent place to live. We welcome everybody, you know," he says.

Others point out that in any town or city of a certain size you will find people with extreme views from any political or religious spectre.

Intelligence report

Yet a 2008 leaked intelligence report from Britain's security service MI5 identified Luton as a place harbouring what it called significant extremist networks, alongside Birmingham and London. The town's proximity to the capital has been held up as a possible reason for why some extreme Islamists might want to set up base here, although no known attempted attack on London has been traced to Luton so far.

All this unwanted attention also worries Luton's local politicians. The town's council is at pains to highlight Luton's diversity as a positive trait. Last year saw the launch of "Luton in Harmony", a branding exercise which challenges the town't negative image and which tries to promote a way of living and working in Luton that encourages people to make friends with different backgrounds.

"We build a level of pride and confidence in the town which many people have been asking for for some time," says Sarah Allen, Luton Council's social justice manager.

"It doesn't mean that there isn't people with unpleasant and distasteful views and who might wish to turn those into actions. But they don't represent the people of Luton. The way that those stories were presented would suggest that they did."

The official international terror threat level in the UK is still severe, which means a terror attack is highly likely. That also means any city or town with a major Muslim population will remain on the intelligence services radar for the foreseeable future. The people of Luton might be getting used to it, but they won't stop working towards turning their town's reputation around.

Author: Lars Bevanger, Luton
Editor: Rob Mudge