The Clarion Project wanted to find out what drives Muslims born and raised in the West to carry out terrorist attacks against their countries of birth.
To this end, they asked Sohail Ahmed, a former terrorist who grew up in an Islamist home in London, to explain what drove him to nearly do exactly that.
In a video that can be viewed on Clarion's website, Ahmed explained concisely and to the point that he had been brought up to view every non-Muslim around him as the enemy:
"It's because of the way I was brought up – believing that the West is at war with Islam, and that because of this, the West is therefore a legitimate target for attacks. Growing up in London, I was taught that I was living in enemy territory, that everyone around me was the enemy and that they were out to get me just because I was a Muslim.
"It was in this kind of mentality that when 9/11 happened and all the conspiracy theories started flying around, about the Americans making it all up so that they could have an excuse to invade Muslim countries – I believed them, because it fit in with what I believed in, with what I had been taught.
"And then when the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan happened, I understood [that] the Americans simply wanted to attack Muslim countries and to kill Muslim people. I honestly believed that, growing up as a 16-year-old. So that when these wars happened, I got really angry and I thought, 'see, they're doing it just to kill Muslims, and therefore I want to actually take revenge and carry out an attack in London.'"