Rageh Omaar reveals how "Sergeant Heroin" has become an important recruiting officer for militant groups

Hundreds of young British Asians and Somalis in cities throughout the UK have become vulnerable and isolated within their own communities as a result of dealing in and using drugs. They form a critical recruiting ground for militant organisations.

Heroin's grip on inner city estates used to be described through the phrase "King Heroin" - but a much better phrase to describe the role the drug has played in helping militant groups reach out to young British Muslims is "Sergeant Heroin". It is a real and important recruiting officer for militant groups.

I've spent much of the past month exploring the meteoric rise in the dealing of hard drugs among young Somali, Pakistani and Bangladeshi boys in London - in Hounslow, Woolwich and Tower Hamlets. Most of them belong to gangs, but only in the loosest sense of the word. They describe themselves as "crews" - often nothing more than a group of young boys who have all grown up together, and are tightly knit around their families, culture and skin colour.

Brick Lane has changed enormously over the past decade; regeneration has transformed it into one of the capital's tourist highlights. You're as likely to meet young tourists from Denmark and Holland as young Somalis and Bengalis. But step away from the glitz and buzzing restaurants of Brick Lane, down any of the side streets that lead to the estates three minutes away from the celebrated road, and you find some of the most deprived wards in the UK.

Down one such side streets is a small fenced-in five-a-side football pitch and patch of green. The area is notorious for the sale and use of heroin. At 11pm on a cold Friday, I was taken here by volunteers from the Brick Lane Youth Development Association. Muhammad Rabbani and his co-workers counsel and mentor hundreds of boys as young as 14 and 15 who find themselves in a a world of drugs, academic failure, racism and much more.

As we walked through the estates behind Brick Lane, Muhammad and his colleagues were recognised by respectful young teenagers, both Asian and Somali. Irham, 16, and his Somali friend, Abdallah, spoke calmly of how dealers offered users a combination called "Black and White" - a wrap of heroin (black) along with a wrap of crack (white). Around the corner, in one dealing hotspot - completely in the open - were older Bengali lads selling the heroin wraps, while users sat around smoking the drug. Even here, Muhammad and his colleagues have access and sufficient respect to approach dealers and urge them to stop what they are doing, offering support to help them do so.

Drugs play an important role in radicalisation. Everyone knows who is dealing. It is when these young men have been ostracised or go to prison - in other words when they've hit rock bottom - that they are ripe for targeting by proselytisers. At first, it is a way out of drugs. Families are overjoyed at seeing lads who were once dealing drugs going to the mosque, studying in madrasa groups - even asking to go to Pakistan or Somalia to study the Koran. It is a far more radical version of how the Nation of Islam spread among black Americans whose lives were blighted by drugs, poverty, crime and alienation.

When the government speaks of concentrating on combating radicalism in cyberspace, they betray how ill-equipped they are to reach out to those young men most vulnerable to al-Qaeda's message. Organisations such as BLYDA need support. The men in these organisations have respect and legitimacy among young British Muslims. Many have gone through what these 14- and 15-year-olds are facing and many others have gone through radical "first point of contact" organisations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Many British Muslims do heroic but utterly unsupported work with youngsters to keep them from being disenchanted, hopeless and radicalised. I call them the Thin Brown Line. The battle will be lost without them.

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