Terrorist Spree

[AE Bravo]

PS: The reason I don't quite buy purely religious reasons for such zeal might be that I grew up going to very fundamentalist Christian churches, I actually know a guy who went to Texas and preached on campuses there... (you may not want to believe it, but he's actually a cool guy in general, I'm not saying I don't like him)
And I somehow got the impression that these Christians also often have their rather personal reasons to invest this much into their religion, it's not just the religion alone, it can be a fear of permanent death, really bad experiences with the general atheist world and their "friends" outside the church, so that they need a reason why it is this way, and so on. And muslim people are not genetically different from Christian people so that it could explain a completely different behavior I think. The major difference is probably that they have a much larger percentage that grows up in this more fundamentalist muslim world.

I think you're generally on point with this, aside from underestimating religious zeal. These individuals tend to have extraordinary levels of faith that are only fueled by some of the traits you pointed out rather than defined by them. As a person who might have had a similar upbringing, I can say with certainty that the issue here is dogma unique to this religion, or at least the way it is taught to you. For fanatics, it only takes one part or understanding of the whole thing to surrender yourself to some apocalyptic vision or suicide - the idea that God has it all mapped out and there's no need to search for your own answers as they're already there. The problem here is that, especially among North African communities now prevalent in Europe, is that their motherlands carry that same hardwired understanding of religion. Countries in between Morocco and Egypt (excluded) have a radical commonplace Islamist culture, everyone whose been there knows that. This in turn affects the upbringing of some of these people in Europe. It's like those boys that murdered their parents in Saudi Arabia for not allowing them to go to 'holy war,' what they were taught in school is a tunnel-visioned view of a route to heaven so there was only one thing (in their mind) for them to do once their parents got in their way. That's how powerful it can be. Islamists can very well be like children touched by their uncle, or in this case an education that haunts them to this day.

I think that answers your question about why there is a larger percentage in the fundamentalist Muslim world. The belief that it is an intrinsic good no matter where it goes, which is a belief that has the luxury of being state-sponsored and socially acceptable.

What I'm not sure about though is what can be done because citizenship is usually unrevokable and if they were born in Britain, they should have it. Other countries would also likely refuse to take them. Trying to reduce extremism somehow would seem the closest approach, no? And then I'm not sure if the same explanation is valid for France, Germany or Belgium, basically whether it is indeed like that for every extremist out there. After all, plenty of them do come from countries like Algeria for example, and they're the ones giving the European youths ideas over the web etc., no?

One way would be to appeal to the crowd you're trying to win over. Establish that these fanatics are apostates and traitors to that religion so that the isolated Muslim communities can adopt this perception. Choosing words like "terrorist" for headlines only furthers insecurity, fear, and victimhood narratives. Think about it, the word now has become synonymous with derogatory terms that shouldn't even be at the same level. Imagine if that word was replaced by "mass murderer" or "apostate?" What glory would there be in 'martyrdom' then?

It might be a dishonest approach to some, but it's a compromise and might save lives.