Noor Dahri, a former member of the Lashkar e Tayyaba (LT) terror group, told the JC he sees the same ‘grievances’ being encouraged in British society by Hamas
December 2, 2025 13:06
A former jihadist turned anti-extremism educator has claimed that British pro-Palestinian protesters are at an even greater risk of being radicalised than he was when he joined a terror group in the 1990s.
Speaking exclusively to the JC at an event organised by pro-Israeli campaign group Stop The Hate, Noor Dahri, originally from Pakistan and a former member of Lashkar e Tayyaba (LT), said that he sees an undeniable likeness in his own descent into extremism and the rhetoric of some British activists.
LT, which was proscribed in the UK in 2001, aimed to “liberate” the disputed province of Kashmir from India and annex it to Pakistan, creating a unified Islamic state. It gained wider infamy when it perpetrated a series of 12 coordinated attacks in Mumbai over three days in November 2008, killing 166 people.
But Dahri sees parallels between the group’s espousal of Islamist ultra-nationalism and the propaganda pushed by Hamas.
"[To the protesters], the Palestinians are like heroes," he said. "For Muslims [when he became a jihadist], Kashmiri people were the heroes. We wanted to liberate them. We wanted to be like them."
He explained that he ultimately left the group when he realised the reality of what he was part of, saying he was "hurt" by what he saw and that people were "losing their lives because of the [group's] goals".
"[It is] exactly the same," he went on. "The ideology and grievances which [Hamas] have created are exactly the same as [those LeT created]."
"We were [poorly] educated in [Pakistan] because we had a jihadist surrounding, but in Western countries, especially the UK, the atmosphere isn't jihadist - the state doesn't support it. This is a Western democratic country...
"There are three types of people who are radicalised: those who have absolutely no knowledge, those who have very limited knowledge, and those who have knowledge but who deny the truth.
"People here are more radicalised than in Pakistan because there they don't have options [to see the truth for themselves], here they have options - they have a British passport, they can travel to Israel, they can see a democratic life where Jews and Muslims are living side by side. [They can see] everyone there executing their rights without persecution.
"But [British pro-Palestine protesters] don't want to know. They are [further along in being of being] radicalised because they are able to know something and still [chose not to] and deny it.
On his work combating extremism through education in his home country, he added: "I personally [taught] them and loads of Pakistanis came to me and they said, 'Yes Noor, we accept what you [are saying], we are following your speeches...
"But British Muslims, they know what I am doing and apart from a few, everyone has rejected my mission, my cause, and my message.
"Western Muslims have more value to [Hamas] than those in the Middle East. They want to use them on the front line to generate pressure on Western governments."
"There is a grievance of the Palestinians, and there is an indoctrination of millions of Muslims on the street being turned against the state of Israel.
"They think Palestinians are the greatest victims of Israeli occupation or Israeli cruelty or Israeli wars, but [just like in his own experience with LeT, Hamas] uses this to achieve [its ideological aims].”
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