A Cage Fighter With a Soft Touch for Hard-Core Jihadists

A Cage Fighter With a Soft Touch for Hard-Core Jihadists
Mr. Raja met with Mr. Beheshti five days a week for a year
and a half, trained him in fighting and eventually brought him out to the gym to spar with a white British soldier.
"That is my legitimacy in the prisons." Over the last eight years, Mr. Raja
and his group, the Unity Initiative, have helped reintegrate more than 50 released prisoners convicted of terrorism offenses.
" Mr. Raja said. that He is still street-respect oriented in that respect,
" Mr. Raja said, struggling to his feet and catching his breath. that Make sure you note that Lyubo is a wrestling master,
29, 2017
Usman Raja, a burly 40-year-old and one-time pioneer of bare-knuckled mixed martial arts fighting,
was back for a few rounds of sparring at his home gym in a town south of London.
By the mid-1990s, Mr. Raja was making a name for himself as a fighter
and trainer in the gyms of East London, and young British Muslims hoping to join the jihad against the Bosnian Serbs sought out his coaching.
"The biggest things these extremists get from it is community," Mr. Raja was saying,
ticking off the names of the convicted terrorists now working with him.