Britain makes film to stop extremism

LONDON - The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office have produced an animated film to stop Muslim teenagers from becoming extremists. British officials have spent more than $50,000 on Wish You Waziristan, a cautionary tale of two young British Muslim brothers who decide to join a group of fighters on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. But critics, including members of the Muslim community, have questioned the wisdom of the film, which has been branded naive and simplistic. The cartoon, which combines computer game-style graphics and teenage street slang, opens with a failed attempt by the brothers to launch a grenade from a mountain-top in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. It then switches into flashback mode and viewers learn how the pair got to an extremists training camp from their home in Britain. The story is told from the point of view of the unnamed younger brother, who has little time for the cause and has agreed to become involved only out of respect for his older brother Abu. Abus journey on the road to extremism begins when he is just 11 years old and he and two white friends are targeted by racists while they are playing football on a beach. The brothers are then shown watching a series of training videos featuring Osama Bin Laden before joining the fighters in Waziristan. The younger brother says the videos are like the computer game 'Call Of Duty but boring. He is also unimpressed by their new home in the Pakistan and the warmth of the welcome they receive. He says: 'When we got there I was thinking, bro, are we in the right place?