some much-needed context:
As a child, he went to a predominantly white school and his social circle was non-Muslim. His family paid little attention to religion. His parents divorced in the late 1990s, when Omar was 10 and his father lived in Belgium for much of the time, where he had a business selling clothes. His mother did not speak or write much English and the eldest son took on family responsibilities at a young age, writing cheques on her behalf. Khayam was captain of the school cricket team, and easily reconciled his British and Pakistani cultures — supporting England at football but Pakistan at cricket. He was popular and academically gifted.
(...) When he started his A-levels, Khayam went to meetings of al-Muhajiroun, led by Omar Bakri Mohammed, who talked of establishing an Islamic state. He was shown videos of the war in Chechnya, featuring graphic footage of the bodies of fellow Muslims and bullet-riddled buildings to a soundtrack of Qur’aanic verses and religious music