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July 18, 2007

Britain: New Leadership Fails To Prevent Islamic Terrorism (3 of 4)

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Britain: New Leadership Fails To Prevent Islamic Terrorism

Part Three (of Four)

In Part Two, the situation of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers was discussed in relation to terror. A quarter of all terror arrests between September 2001 and September 2005 involved asylum seekers. Illegal immigrants are an unknown factor in Britain's demography, who number from 570,000 to 870,000. The Institute for Public Policy Research has recently argued that Britain should offer an amnesty to illegal immigrants. Since September 2006, fingerprinting of visa and asylum applicants has taken place. Of 150 countries intended to be involved in supporting this "biometric" validation scheme, only 80 are currently taking part.

This system is called by the Home Office "Project Semaphore, which was initiated in 2004, with its information technology contract awarded to IBM. When first announced, Semaphore was part of an "e-borders" scheme, monitoring travel into and out of the UK, referring to law enforcement databases of potential criminal or terrorist suspects, and compiling its own data resource. On September 28, 2004 when the scheme was announced, it was not expected to be fully operational until 2008, and will involve iris recognition as a means of identification. It was intended to work alongside the government's "identification card" system, which has floundered due to political objections and may never be introduced.

Recently, the head of Interpol, Ronald K. Noble, was reported to criticize Britain's checks of travelers to the UK against its global database. Noble was reported to say: "We have the passport numbers, fingerprints and photos of more than 11,000 suspected terrorists on our database. But the UK does not check it against immigrants coming into the country or foreign nationals it has arrested. The guys detained last week [car bomb suspects] could be wanted, arrested or convicted anywhere in the world and the UK would not know."

Noble asserted that the interview had given the wrong emphasis, by suggesting all immigrants should be under surveillance. He said that in 2006, the UK had 30 million visitors, rather than immigrants. Noble maintained that only 17 nations out of Interpol's 186 member countries regularly check against Interpol's Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database. This contains 15 million entries, including at least 7 million passports. He maintained that failure to check against this database "poses the single greatest terrorist threat to the entire world."

Gordon Brown, who became the unelected UK prime minister on June 27, had intimated on July 8 that he supported a decision by EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, to create a European database. This would log all passengers flying in and out of the EU, similar to the US database which retains details for 15 years. On July 4 in Parliament, Brown had promised to expand the UK's international "watchlist" of potential terrorists.

Ronald Noble, who has headed Interpol for 7 years, told USA Today that a truly effective international terrorist database does not exist because countries only share information with their close allies. He said: "You can't fight terrorism from the (European Union) only, or the United States, or with your allies. Al-Qaeda operates internationally. You have to fight it worldwide."

A former head of Scotland Yard's "Flying Squad", John O'Connor, claims that Britain has been slower than the US to respond to the threats of terrorism. He said: "We have unrestricted immigration to this country. It's very easy for people to come here under the guise of being somebody else. As an example, one of the stories that got lost through 9/11 was the closing of a refugee camp in Calais [Sangatte] and the French authorities at that stage released the information that 30,000 refugees had passed through that camp and they could account for 300 of them. That means there's 29,700 that came to the UK. Well, who are they, and where are they and what are they doing? It's estimated that we have something like between 500,000 and 750,000 people that nobody knows who they are and what they're doing here. They're here illegally and not on the radar for anybody. So it's very easy for people to get into this country under the guise of being an economic refugee, very easy to get them here and not know where they go and who's looking after them. And if they're being funded by outside sources, then they could stay here indefinitely."

Once inside Britain, it is easy for individuals to assume others' identities. Identity theft is becoming increasingly common. This has gone on for decades in different forms. In 1982, several people I knew were asked to engage in "marriages of convenience". Each man was offered $600 to marry a West African woman. The "fixer" was a Ghanaian woman named "Amelia" who arranged the marriages. She took prospective grooms' birth certificates to submit to registry offices. The Nigerian lawyer who ran the scam was jailed, but Amelia was never arrested, and the birth certificates were never returned. They were almost certainly sold on to male illegal migrants. Nowadays credit card details and bank accounts are used to steal identities, and to gain UK passports.

The UK Home Office is responsible for issuing passports through its Identity and Passport Service (IPS), but as I wrote earlier passport fraud has been used by terrorists in Britain. Dhiren Barot, who planned attacks in Britain and the US, was issued with nine passports, with two of these issued under fraudulent identities. Despite the recent introduction of "biometric" e-passports, between September 2005 and September 2006 10,000 individuals were issued with British passports under bogus identities. In March this year, several illegal passport factories were raided across London.

Many foreign students arrive in Britain, but visas issued to some of these students are being abused. In April this year, visa arrangements for students were altered so that more stringent checks were applied, a "sponsor" was required and a student was obliged to prove that he or she has the ability to be self-funding. Before this, merely presenting an acceptance letter from a university or college was enough to receive a three-year visa. Despite recent visa amendments, once a person has gained entry to the country there is nothing to stop that individual "disappearing".

At Portsmouth University in southern Britain, hundreds of foreign students were offered places but did not turn up. These included 379 applicants from Pakistan, 16 from Saudi Arabia and 2 from Iraq.

The problem of illegal entry is important, but equally worrisome are the extremists born and raised in Britain. On August 10 last year, 24 individuals were arrested, all holders of British passports, for their suspected involvement to blow up several US-bound planes using liquid explosives. Most were the offspring of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, but one, Oliver Savant (aka Ibrahim Savant) appears to have been a white convert.

There have been complaints for some time about mosque leaders who do not preach in English, adding to the feelings of "separateness" perceived by many young Muslims in Britain. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham became the first Muslim member of the House of Lords in 1998. He recently claimed that imams who do not speak English should not be allowed to preach. He had made similar claims in May 2006, arguing that young people would be drawn to extremist preachers. Abu Hamza's English-language sermons at Finsbury Park mosque were attended by three of the 7/7 bombers, and all four of the convicted 21/7 bombers.

In February 2006, Labour MP Ann Cryer had said that many foreign imams in her Keighley constituency had little understanding of British culture and language. She said: "They should have a knowledge of child protection, of how we regard the rights of women. Imams and others should encourage integration as opposed to segregation. Over many many years, I have not been given any help at all by many of the imams who have been brought in, many of whom don't speak a word of English, have little knowledge of what life in Britain is all about, particularly for their young members."

Research by Chester University, conducted at 300 mosques and published this month, found that 66% of imams have Urdu as a first language, with 52% giving sermons in this Pakistani language. Of the 300 imams questioned, the majority (146) came from Pakistan, followed by 57 from Bangladesh and 44 from India. Only 24 came from Britain.

The three most controversial imams in Britain, whose sermons were listened to by extremists and known terrorists were hook-handed Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri Mohammed and Abdullah el-Faisal. All distributed cassettes and videos of their sermons, and traveled across Britain to indoctrinate alienated Muslim youth. For the most part, their sermons were conducted in English.

Omar Bakri Mohammed fled Britain in August 2005, but still preaches via the internet from his base in Lebanon. Abdullah el-Faisal was jailed for incitement to murder on February 24, 2003. He had been trained in Saudi Arabia's Imam Ibn Saud University in Riyadh and urged the killing of Jews and Hindus. His sermons were attended by three of the 7/7 bombers, and he was an associate of American Islamist James Ujaama. El-Faisel was deported to his native Jamaica on May 25 this year. Abu Hamza was jailed for seven years for "soliciting murder" on February 7, 2006.

The problems of radicalized British Muslims, most of whom are of Pakistani origin, have been highlighted by numerous surveys. A poll from February 2006 found 40% of Muslims wanted Sharia law in Britain, and 20% sympathized with the motives of the 7/7 suicide bombers, who killed 52 people. In June 2006, Pew Global Attitudes found that British Muslims were the most hostile towards Western values than Muslims from any other European country. In July 2006 a poll by Populus found that 13% of respondents believed the 7/7 suicide bombers should be regarded as "martyrs". 16% claimed that if a family member joined Al Qaeda, they would feel "indifferent".

On Monday January 28, a poll was taken by Populus for the Policy Exchange. This attempted to find out how opinions of Muslims differed within age groups. 37% of young Muslims (aged 16 to 24) wanted to live under Sharia law, compared to only 17% of Muslims aged over 55. One in eight young Muslims supported groups such as Al Qaeda which were "prepared to fight the West", and 36% of young Muslims thought that those who left Islam should be killed. Three out of four young Muslims wanted women to wear the hijab or Islamic headscarf, compared to one in four of the over-55s.

The situation in Britain now is such that a small minority of Muslims are dedicated to jihad and terrorism, with 100 individuals awaiting trial on terror charges. Even though Britain participates in the Visa Waiver Program, the Secretary for Homeland Security in the US, Michael Chertoff, has declared that the system needs to be made more secure. In May 2007, it was reported that Secretary Chertoff had suggested to the UK Government that Britons of Pakistani origin may be required to apply for visas before traveling to the United States.

The problem of terror cells and terror sympathizers has been growing over the last year. In April 2006, the then head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, claimed that there were at least 400 Al Qaeda suspects in Britain. If that figure also included those who had undergone terror training camps in Pakistan, the total would amount to 600. In July 2006, MI5 claimed that there were 1,200 Islamist terror suspects operating in Britain, drawn from 400,000 "sympathizers". Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism unit, stated that there were about 70 terrorist plots at that time. In August 2006 Home Secretary John Reid claimed that of these 70 plots, 24 were of a serious nature.

The most recent figures for the scale of terror operations now being monitored by MI5 are higher than they have ever been. An MI5 map, issued to the police, was leaked to the press. In total, 219 terror cells are being monitored at locations across Britain. In the central Midlands region, there are 80 groups, with 35 in London, 60 in the northwest of England, 20 around Liverpool, 12 in Scotland, 10 in Wales and 2 in Northern Ireland. At least 1,600 people are involved in these cells, perhaps 3,000.

Brown's new government has an admiral, Sir Alan West, as its new security minister. He urged that Britons should inform on each other if terrorism was suspected. He echoed sentiments made earlier by retired MI5 chief Eliza Manningham-Buller, who claimed that the battle against terrorism would take a "generation". 59-year old Admiral West, carefully avoiding the term "war on terror", said that it would take at least 15 years to remove the scoure of radicalism from Britain's Muslim youth. He said that Britain was fighting "a disparate core of people - based abroad primarily - whom I'm afraid are racist, they're bigoted, they seek power, they're avaricious in money terms and they talk of the caliphate."

Last year, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller claimed that 200 people had gone from Britain to training camps in Pakistan. On Sunday, July 15 security chiefs revealed that up to 4,000 Islamists have gone from Britain to Afghanistan to be trained at terror camps. A source told the Sunday Telegraph: "There are 3,000 to 4,000 people who went from the UK to Afghanistan and came back. The important question is, where are they now?"

The scale of extremism within a section of Britain's homegrown Muslim community is now emerging as something far bigger than formerly acknowledged. Gordon Brown, after the car bomb plots in London and Glasgow, has tried to appear "tough" on terrorism, but as I will show in the final part of this article, he himself has connived with some of the shoddy policies which have allowed British terrorism to reach its current position.

Concluded in Part Four.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 18, 2007 2:07 PM

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Posted by: skh.pcola at July 19, 2007 3:09 AM

Posted by: Giraldus Cambrensis at July 19, 2007 3:45 AM

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