He is a long-haired rocker who plays a mean riff and cites Led Zeppelin among his influences — and now he has been unveiled as the government’s latest weapon in the fight against Al-Qaeda.
Salman Ahmad, a Pakistani musician whose band has sold more than 30m albums, is to urge Muslim students to choose an electric guitar over extremism.
The self-proclaimed “rock’n’roll jihadist” will take his message this week to students at Oxford University, Imperial College and the London School of Economics, which all have sizable Islamic societies.
“You counter radicalisation through telling the truth and if that comes from the power of a guitar then do that,” said Ahmad, who has worked with the Obama administration to tackle extremism on American college campuses.
