Forsyth’s saga

FT.com / Columnists / Lunch with the FT - Lunch with the FT: Forsyth’s saga:

"At the core of his book is the implicit belief that the world has become a network for potential Armageddon, in which young men become radicalised and hand over their lives to charismatic Islamists. Then, working in association with al-Qaeda, kindred organisations or in their own self-created groups, they plot mass murder. Like many of his novels, only more so, The Afghan hangs its fictional characters on real events and makes them interact with real people - such as John Negroponte, director of US National Intelligence - who play important roles, if off-stage.

“You’ve got movements proselytising and converting at an extraordinary rate,” Forsyth told me. “They are now converting people in most major prisons - in the US, the Caribbean, and here. If you are looking for a spiritual home - something to cling to, a kind of brotherhood, membership of a sort of fraternity - they offer you all of this. I think a number of young black men are in that mood. There are a few whites, Anglo-Saxons I suppose you’d call them. The shoe-bomber was half white. And, well, there’s Cat Stevens, but he’s absolutely against terror, a good egg, goes around preaching for peace.”"