There is a difference between excusing and understanding. I understand that some Muslims might see the western invasions of Muslim countries as religious oppression with more than a hint of crusade about them, and I understand that some of those might wish to take revenge on members of the western armed forces who took part in those invasions.

If there is a war, then non-combatants do get killed and sometimes even targetted - consider the Blitz, Cologne, Munich, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. But nowadays we tend to see it as less immoral seek to kill and destroy only combatants, military resources, and installations necessary for military purposes.

One may rightly prohibit and seek to prevent actions outwith such moral judgements - but history proves that you can only stop martyrs by addressing their cause. Even WWII German hostagetaking and murder did not stop the resistance, and we see the resistance as heroes. Nothing stopped the Irish republicans (although I do not see them as heroes, and many of their targets were civilian rather than military).

I am concerned that the organisational response, even from Muslims, seems to include licensing for Islamic Imams (since I can't see a way to prejudge which are likely to become Islamist as distinct from Islamic).

What utterly baffles me however is how an apparently intelligent A grade student born in London and into an observant Xtian family could buy into the type of Islam that, apparently, he did. I get more and more the flavour of a young man with a mental illness. I know someone in the same hospital as him, and gossip (probably more reliable than government pronunciamento) is that he really is not likely to die so perhaps we will get some answers in due course .

Must go and fix caravan!