Sunday, February 25, 2007

2000 British Islamist terrorists

From AP:


The threat of homegrown terrorists attacking Britain is greater now than any time since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, a British Sunday newspaper reported, citing a leaked intelligence document.

More than 2,000 British-based Islamic terrorists are believed to be plotting attacks, according to a government threat assessment prepared this month, which The Sunday Telegraph said it had seen.

"The scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions towards attacking the UK and the number of UK extremists prepared to participate in attacks are even greater than we previously judged," the newspaper quoted the document as saying.

The newspaper said the document was being circulated between the Home Office, defense ministry, M15 intelligence agency and Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch.

The Home Office declined to comment on the report, but said in a statement that security arrangements are under constant review.

But not to worry: 2000 is still only a tiny minority of all British Muslims, so all is well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, "the document was being circulated between the Home Office, defense ministry, M15 intelligence agency and Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch", all of which get increased power and funding if the fear of terrorists is higher and none of which thus have an interest to give a realistic assessment of the threat. I will believe it once some less biased party confirms it (Interpol, a parliamentary commission, an EU report, whatever).