The road to radicalisation can morph from an idea about noble deeds.
As ever more young Britons head to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State, the government is left desperately seeking a strategy to combat the lure of recruitment to jihad.
A British man who flew to Syria to wage jihad has been sentenced to 12 years in jail.
After killing 12 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi were heard proclaiming, “we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad”. Amateur footage also revealed the killers invoking God with the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar”. This otherwise innocuous everyday religious utterance is frequently usurped as a jihadist battlecry.
Britons who travel abroad to wage jihad could be prevented from returning to the UK under new powers outlined by the prime minister.