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Fraser Nelson Al-Qa’eda’s secret UK gangs: terror as a ‘playground dare’

22 March 2008

As Brown unveils his National Security Strategy, Fraser Nelson talks to those in the front line against Islamic extremism. MI5 has expanded successfully, but faces in al-Qa’eda an enemy that is organic, elusive and constantly mutating: gangs built on deadly bravado

That is not to say that the new AQ groups are unbeatable: far from it. They are certainly harder to find than IRA cells. But once they are detected, their loose-knit structure means they are easier to disrupt. They are normally young men thrown together with little discipline, if one is disheartened, the rest of the group can collapse quite quickly. The constant problem for the intelligence services is at what point to send in the police: too soon, and there will be no evidence to prosecute. Too late, and the unthinkable may happen.

Yet the smart strategy is to stop young Muslim males getting to this stage in the first place. Most surveys of British Muslim opinion show that the vast majority (normally about four fifths) denounce terrorist activity. This still leaves a depressingly large 20 per cent who say they disagree with terrorist attacks in Britain — but consider such tactics acceptable in Israel, Chechnya or Kashmir.

Less than 1 per cent would be willing to get involved in terrorism. Yet the transition process, from broad sympathy to outright complicity, is becoming alarmingly fast. Sidique Khan took two years of preparation to become a suicide bomber ahead of the London attacks. The terrorists now being apprehended by security services are making this journey to jihad in a matter of weeks.

Ministers who have been involved in dealing with Muslim radicalisation attest to the scale of the problem. British Islam, they fear, suffers from weak institutions which are easily infiltrated by the more organised and articulate extremist bodies. And, outside the mosques, the most articulate and persuasive voice tends to be that of Hizb ut Tahrir, a radical Sunni group whose aim is the restoration of the caliphate.

The government is increasingly losing confidence in the Muslim Council of Britain, whose members have a habit of saying ‘yes, but...’ when asked to condemn terrorist attacks. It is filled with people who prefer to equivocate, and are slow to call Palestinian terrorism in Israel by its name. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, until recently the Council’s chairman, once observed that death was ‘perhaps too easy’ for Salman Rushdie. Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary and Ruth Kelly, her predecessor, tired of the Muslim Council of Britain some time ago and both have pursued a strategy of threatening to withhold funds unless the MCB started to confront extremists.

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Austin Barry

March 19th, 2008 1:06pm Report this comment

Sooner or later there will need to be a de facto partial moratorium on immigration from certain countries (this will never be stated openly) and interdiction by assassination (of which we will hear even less). Meanwhile, apparently, we can rely on interdiction by budget operated by Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears, and if this Maginot line of idiocy reflects Government strategy for the Homeland, then we've had it chums.

Roy

March 20th, 2008 1:30am Report this comment

Muslim leaders are always afraid of upsetting other Muslim leaders and defy all to stay well within the fold. So it is with Black Americans as we have seen with the Obama speech. They will not betray their own even at the expense of all logic. British leading politician seem not to have any inhibitions in this regard. Have continually betrayed their own people, continue to bring the enemy in, give them sustenance, and crazily . . . citizenship.

ed lancey

March 20th, 2008 8:39am Report this comment

"precisely because they are relatively well integrated" here we go again. Relatively speaking, i.e. relative to other immigrant/ethnic groups, Muslims are poorly integrated. And the last time I looked, 80% didn't constitute the hoary old "vast majority".

bruno

March 20th, 2008 1:16pm Report this comment

Apropro engineering degrees - studying for a master's in a fairly specialised part of engineering (not nuclear) some 30 years ago, out of a dozen students on the course - in a redbrick UK university, over half were from either Iran or Iraq. The UK needed to wake up long long ago to the massive training that we gave to potential enemies in many many branches of science and technology.

London Calling

March 20th, 2008 5:38pm Report this comment

I recently heard through the media that a undercover muslim employer working for MI5 was leaking information to a source outside, I never heard no more about it though, but if true who is guarding the guards?. You dont have to look Muslim to be a Muslim and the enemy could just be a loner who can quite easily go on the internet and learn how to make a home made bomb using basic materials available, however the cells normally group through college or through mosques, we therefore have to infiltrate these two areas as this is the only way to get closer to the real enemies as with drug smuggling,

Sajid Ali Khan

March 21st, 2008 8:03am Report this comment

Obviously, first pick your "enemy". G W Bush & T. Blair did this for us. Then given time, & six years and counting is more than enough, use good old fashioned, tried & trusted, wartime propaganda to well & truly demonise "the enemy"; just as we did with the Japanese & the Germans in a bit less than six years during WWII. Only this time we demonise those who would otherwise be perfectly useful citizens of England.

Sajid Ali Khan

March 21st, 2008 8:33am Report this comment

Fraser Nelson writes "so-called Waziristan"; but he only needs to Google "Waziristan" to get a clearer notion of both North & South Waziristan.

RJ MItchell

March 21st, 2008 10:18am Report this comment

Just remind me: what were the benefits of mass immigration ? WE have all kinds of people living here now who are at best semi-detached from British society. The government does not have a clue how to sort out the mess - in fact they allow mass immigration from the 3rd world to continue. And their political correctness means they cannot even see the problems - let alone tackle them. Yikes.

J Solicar

March 21st, 2008 12:50pm Report this comment

On present rules of engagement, this struggle cannot be won. Britain's ruling elite have admitted a substantial and fast growing muslim population to the United Kingdom. That population, as it expands - as it must - will exert growing political and intimidatory power in the land. We have been seeing the signs of that for some time. Muslim youth senses weakness, and who does not want to be on the winning side? You can expand MI5 triple-fold; you can fund this moderate group or that moderate group; but in the end the demographics will do for you. Solution? It's probably too late. Within 40 years there will be balkanisation of England, perhaps with civil war in the style of Lebanon. You might try cutting off the continuing flow of Pakistani migration through marriage. You might try jettisoning your liberal pieties and bearing down on Moslems by telling them that this is our land and if they won't truly fit in - for instance by allowing their sons and (yes!) their daughters to "marry out" of their communities - they will have to return to their own benighted countries of ancestral origin. For this will be a struggle for territory if the English are not to become cringing helots in their own home. We know of course that our feable and corrupt political class will not face the reality for some years yet. Tragically, our children and grandchildren face a terrible future - unless of course they qualify to migrate to Australia.

F Kimbal Johnson

March 22nd, 2008 9:26am Report this comment

No Muslim immigrants means no terrorist threat and billions saved for the British taxpayer.

thecomebackid@hotmail.com

March 22nd, 2008 9:37am Report this comment

Hazel Blears and Ruth Kelly are considering witholding funds from the MCB? Why should taxpayers and Government be supporting such organisations in the first place?

Mark S. Bennison(author)

March 22nd, 2008 1:47pm Report this comment

This kind of debate will go on and on so long as it is advertised. We have only ourselves to blame: I admit to voting for 'new labour'. Shame on me. Blair hooked up with Bush,or did Bush hook Blair. Anyway, Blair should have looked at his population before invading the extended shores of the UK, which he now envoys for peace. Have I suddenly been quantum leaped to a different planet! Of course, the Muslims were not going to feel anything such as revenge! Even five years on. Still, the price of oil and so called democracy smuthered with dictatorship, is worth it. Is it not? Then I shall have to stop paying all my taxes, which I can't anyway. At least we knew what Saddam was. We have to know our own leaders through secondhand events such as puishing through policies, and changes, that the british public did not vote for or appear to have the brains to disaprove. We should have called for a general strike to stop the strike of Iraq. My kingdom for a crystal ball! So, we are half way past the 'B's. Bush will be gone and the 'C's could be coming (Clinton)and her new future 'friend', Cameron. Hope he can keep his sip up. Or should they be friends, being opposites such as Blair and Bush. Oh, sorry, no party differences across the pond. God, what a prospect. That's it! Let's put our faith in God. But, which one? Ah! MacAain. Yes, he will be able to keep Allah on the back benches. So, until we do a deal which mirrors the IRA, we will be debating terror for ever and evOr until Allah wins an election. Watch this space!

m wood

March 22nd, 2008 10:07pm Report this comment

Isn't it time to loudly say to the Islamists that "our way of life is better, kinder, more tolerent than yours. It took us many 100s of years to get here - we used to do some pretty horible things, - but what we have now is a better way of life - why not come and join it"? The only reason people change their lives if there is something better to look forward to. In the end, thats why the Berlin wall came down - those on the other side saw we had a better way of life.

DE Cooper

March 22nd, 2008 10:21pm Report this comment

The threat is not something that can be beaten quickly, if at all. There are just too many obstacles. Chief among these is the fact that so called "Muslim leaders" will seldom condemn terrorism or the individuals and frameworks which promote it. There are certainly no go (Muslim) areas in this country, as Michael Ali, Bishop of Rochester, correctly and bravely pointed out, and this determination by Muslims to be seperate means the government and the rest of us are fighting a losing battle against extremism. We can never count on people from the so called "community" to pass on vital information despite many being born and bred in the UK. In France and in other places, a much tougher approach would be taken for sure.

Augustus

March 23rd, 2008 2:30pm Report this comment

'Too late and the unthinkable may happen...' That's been the West's problem all along. Sleepwalking (until 9/11) and then, like the Sun suddenly shining out of a cellar, you're confronted with untrammelled extremists spuwing hellfire and unlimited destruction in the name of Allah. Well, there are many obstacles to dialogue. Point 1. Moslem councils don't make the laws in Europe. Point 2. There ain't nearly enough anti-extremist propaganda being shown in the media. In this day and age that's the best way to avoid the coming fighting in the streets. Have we got to have another general strike to get things moving? BTW how to define a moderate? Anyone who doesn't want to kill you if you cast some criticism at them? Crikey, wake up people and smell the coffee...

Alistair

March 24th, 2008 4:05pm Report this comment

In Canada we are already losing the battle against rising Islamic extremism. When Mark Steyn, a former columnist for The Spectator, published an excerpt from his book "America Alone" in our weekly, "MacLeans Magazine", the Canadian Islamic Congress complained to the Canadian Human Rights Commission citing hate literature. The HRC is a quasi judicial body which arbitrates discrimination issues over rental housing and such like. The CIC has found a powerful ally in their fight against freedom of speech. Don't let it happen in Britain.

John Walter

March 28th, 2008 5:12pm Report this comment

I can't see that this article tells me anything I didn't already know. I searched long and hard for something new. For example you didn't need the July bombers to realise that terrorists are educated middle class, that was obvious from the German cell. And 2,000 plots tells me not that the threat has increased but that MI5 haven't a clue who is a threat and who isn't, so everybody is to be on the safe side. Yes, and just when are the Heathrow eleven coming to trial for God's sake? Two years on and not a peep? So, guys did we or didn't we have concrete and clear evidence of an immediate threat or not? Because two years sounds to me like somebody is scratching around for evidence.

Herbert Thornton

December 30th, 2008 10:17pm Report this comment

All very alarming - but what to do about it?

One of the few solutions on offer is the BNP policy of persuading the people who are the source of it all to go back to the countries of their origin.

But since that seems to be utterly unthinkable, why not adopt a George Brown/David Cameron type solution instead? Just invite all the inhabitants of Gaza to come and settle in Britain - and in return Israel will invite indigenous British folk to come and live in Gaza on Sea?

See - all it needs is diplomacy, eh?

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