"Jihad": A few things don't add up...?

[Beachtastic]

I know it's early days and we don't have much info to go on about the killer at the Manchester synagogue. But this BBC news article is very confusing.

He's described as a "35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent" who "was granted British citizenship in 2006 when he was around the age of 16" ... my maths is shit, but 2025 minus 2006 = 19...? Other articles says he was a minor when he was given citizenship.

Apparently he was "on police bail after being arrested on suspicion of rape at the time of the killings" but "was not charged with the offence."

His parents, understandably, have made a strong statement distancing themselves from his actions, but the article goes on to say:

A post on his father's Facebook page, which has been verified by the BBC, appears to praise the 7 October attack by Hamas.
... The post reads: "The scenes broadcast by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades showing a group of fighters storming an occupation army camp with simple means, balloons and motorcycles, prove beyond any doubt that Israel is not here to stay.
"Men like these prove that they are Allah's men on earth, regardless of who leads them, they are the true compass for men confident in their victory, even if their resources are few."

It also says his father is a surgeon... and that "Jihad" was his birth name.

I'm not sure where to begin processing all this information, if it's true. Quite surprised to find it reported by the BBC to be honest.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q7y72kppgo

@Beachtastici kept threads and comments from that and I will continue to do so because I was hounded. I hope when/ if there is accountability for things people will be asked to explain themselves.

I won’t say more than that on here as I got into trouble last time :)

He's described as a "35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent" who "was granted British citizenship in 2006 when he was around the age of 16" ... my maths is shit, but 2025 minus 2006 = 19...? Other articles says he was a minor when he was given citizenship.

I’m 35 and in 2006 I was 16. 🤷‍♀️ born at the end of 1989, you do the math. Not going to read the thread of someone who can’t understand things like that 😂

Social media was also convinced that the Southport killer was a Muslim.who had recently come into the UK on an inflatable boat. People post sensationalist stuff knowing that if it's true, they can take glory in being right, and if it's wrong noone will remember. Or to cause trouble.
If you go with "it sounds like the sort of thing that would be true" you quickly fall into cognitive bias

I think the answer in this case is for media to report the facts. There's a limit to what you can do about social media rumour mongering but the solution for actual news is quite simple in this case.

I wish I'd done the same. It was very, very sinister. And I think this is what feeds into my suspicion about who's pulling the strings in the UK rallies.

I think otherwise you end up doing the exact thing that you said other people were doing on the CiME boards.

I heard that he only converted to Islam in 2018 or something? But they must mean radical islam.

His family when he was growing up have been described as 'secular'? So I thought he'd changed his name to Jihad. Which actually means 'suffering' so it's a bit like names like Delores. It's not necessarily only about terrorism.

But now there's this thing about his dad supporting Hamas? Though as I understand it his dad lives in France and he lives at his mum's house?

It is all quite confusing.

Yes, I stand corrected (by quite a few PPs)! 🫣

The correct calculation was even explained to me, although it was all a bit whoooooossssshhh 🤯

We've moved on a lot since then -- covered glow-up transitions, K-pop and celebrity confessions... you've missed a lot of fun!

Well, I found it confusing. And that's even without the maths!

What happened on the CITME forum was more than just making wild claims... but I will draw a veil over it, in light of stoma's comment just now.

Very interesting thread. I think one aim for us as parents should be to ensure our children can be different from othres and apply critical thinking and check facts again and again.

It's not that the level of hatred is equivalent. Its more that if you allow wild speculation to lead the narrative, you have no control over what the wild speculation says and when it becomes toxic /incredibly unpleasant what do you do then? All conspiracy theories, eventually end up being about Jewish people for some reason (the reason is deep rooted anti-Semitism that has nothing to do with Muslim immigrants). Even ones that start of being about completely different things. And you get these very strange overarching narratives that feed of new misinformation and hatred. If you add into that the idea that the first news is the most trustworthy/that the person with the most followers on Twitter must have the best information it gets very dangerous.

That makes it more important, not less, that the BBC etc aren't just "saying what we're all thinking" but reporting the known facts. Even if it makes them slower than social media. I think there are lots of things you can criticise the beeb for. Not going "I reckon he was a Muslim" before that was known isn't one of them.

@persephoniai have just seen a ‘comedy’ skit on line. The basis being:
He had a fake bomb attached to his front
He has already screamed obscenities outside the synagogue.
He ploughed a man over killing him and attempted to stab visibly Jewish men.

It won’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out motivation.

I agree in some cases we need to wait. But when it’s being posted in real time it’s very hard to do that. I will be very shocked if it’s down to the man having a grievance with someone as his roof wasn’t tiled properly. I also think it does a disservice when we purposely muddy the waters as we don’t want to be seen to be unpc.

And the BBC reported on all that
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd63p1djgd7o
All the details are there. Including the suspected motivation. But I don't need a BBC reporter hours after the attack doing a "here's what I think happened." Before the police have even released a statement..I don't think it's "sus" or "PC" for there to be a time lag between "justatypicalAmericandad" on X confidently saying he knows what happened and the news reporting what the police know. Otherwise we could do away with the police altogether and let Twitter detectives solve everything.

But that’s where we are adults and choose what to engage with…. Hence me ignoring ‘ false flag’ nutters.

Yes, I totally agree; media reporting mustn't jump the gun, even when things might seem pretty obvious. I wasn't disputing that, I was just remarking that however hostile and chaotic things sometimes get on the CITME forum, it's all a vast improvement on The Bad Old Days 🌞

Yes, a bit of fact-checking would certainly not go amiss!

Also, knowing where to check them... maybe comparing across multiple sites like FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, Snopes, etc.

And looking at funding profiles on information sites.

God, I love the internet, but I'm beginning to wish we'd never started it! Talk about a Pandora's Box!

www.themost10.com/the-10-best-fact-checking-sites/#

Great explanation and so so true.

We didn't know that initially did we and anyway two have been released. Does that make a difference? Why can't we just wait for facts although as I've said some people don't want facts do they.

There was an actual discussion going on here.

It was on the ten o clock news on bbc last night.

@TakeMe2Insanitynot policing the thread are you? I have participated in discussion.

It means holy struggle. Either against enemies or for spiritual englightment. Not at all a bad meaning for a name, just given extra context in modern context.