MP Stabbing: The Al-Qaeda Link

It has emerged that Roshonara Choudhry, the 21-year old found guilty yesterday of attempting to murder East Ham MP Stephen Timms, may have been radicalised by Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born Yemeni believed to be the man behind recent terror plots emanating from the Arabian Peninsula, including the attempt to bring down a jet on Christmas Day and last week's ink cartridge bomb. al-Awlaki, understood to be the leader of al-Qaeda's franchise in Yemen, dispenses sermons via some 5,000 videos hosted on YouTube; it is understood that Choudhry had been an avid watcher, and was inspired by them to stab Mr. Timms in his constituency surgery last May. Google, owner of YouTube, has thus far resisted calls to remove the videos.