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Subject: Terror threat in UK--unreal and reported by AL Jazeera-what more??
Herc the Merc    11/10/2006 12:42:04 PM
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9EAB19D6-8DEC-4750-B729-0EF85BF3BB95.htm UK says it is tracking 30 'terror plots' Friday 10 November 2006, 12:00 Makka Time, 9:00 GMT Manningham-Buller: Threat from terrorism will last a generation Related: Briton jailed over Thames bomb plot Tools: Email Article Print Article Send Your Feedback British intelligence services are tracking more than 1,600 people from 200 groups or networks who are "actively engaged in terrorism", the head of MI5, the domestic spy agency, has said. Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said on Thursday that MI5 was aware of nearly 30 "plots to kill people and to damage our economy". The risk to Britain was "sustained ... not a series of isolated incidents" and the "serious, growing threat ..." from terrorism would last a generation, she said. Her assessment, made in a rare public speech, came after Dhiren Barot, a Briton, was jailed for life on Tuesday for plotting to kill thousands of people in devastating attacks in Britain and the United States. 'Speedy' radicalisation Manningham-Buller said MI5's caseload of British-based terror sympathisers - many of them British citizens - had increased by 80 per cent since January and she was alarmed by the "scale and speed" of radicalisation. "Martyrdom" videos of suicide bombers were motivated in part by "their interpretation as anti-Muslim of UK foreign policy, in particular the UK's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan," she told academics in east London. "Today my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1,600 identified individuals - and there will be many more we don't know - who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas. "What we see at the extreme end of the spectrum are resilient networks, some directed from al-Qaeda in Pakistan, some more loosely inspired by it, planning attacks including mass-casualty suicide attacks in the UK." Tony Blair, the British prime minister, and his government have repeatedly denied a link between extremism and British foreign policy. Nuclear material The MI5 director-general was quoted as saying that while home-made, improvised explosives may be used today, chemical, bacteriological, radioactive and even nuclear material will be used in the future. MI5 says its 'terror' caseload has increased by 80% since January Manningham-Buller also expressed concern that many involved were young men and teenagers as young as 16. "More and more people are moving from passive sympathy towards active terrorism through being radicalised or indoctrinated by friends, families, in organised training events here and overseas ..." she said. High alert Britain has been on high alert after the July 7, 2005, bombings on London's public transport network that killed the four Muslim suicide bombers and 52 commuters and injured more than 700. There was an alleged attempt to replicate the attacks two weeks later while on August 10 this year, police and security services foiled what they said was a plot to blow up transatlantic passenger jets using liquid explosives. The head of counter-terrorism at London's Metropolitan Police, Peter Clarke, said in an interview broadcast in September that thousands of British Muslims were under surveillance for direct or indirect involvement in terrorism. AFP
 
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Danton74       11/10/2006 3:18:51 PM
"Tony Blair, the British prime minister, and [some of] his government have repeatedly denied a link between extremism and British foreign policy"

LOL!

 
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EW3       11/11/2006 5:33:54 AM

While I don't think you can seperate the two, do you believe that you would not have terrorism if you were not involved overseas?  If you do, is that going to stay that way for the next 20 years.
"Tony Blair, the British prime minister, and [some of] his government have repeatedly denied a link between extremism and British
foreign policy"

LOL!



 
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Danton74       11/11/2006 7:25:32 AM
"While I don't think you can seperate the two, do you believe that you would not have terrorism if you were not involved overseas?  If you do, is that going to stay that way for the next 20 years."

EW3,

I'm sorry, I just can't take the UK government's stance on terrorism as seriously as you obviously do. Why? Because for the last 30 to 40 years France has been plagued by terrorist activity from Algerians and others - the number of whom who have been religion based has grow with time. France has been seeking assistance from countries like the UK and US for almost all that time and their only response has been lip-service. For example - after bombs were set off in Paris in the 1990s the French government asked the UK to do something about the number of terrorists using London, or Londonistan as it was commonly known, to no avail. Over and over again the French requested the arrest and extradition of several well known characters - what did the UK do? Nothing mostly, and when they did arrest some they refused to deport them to France for fear of bringing on attacks in the UK. That's right they refused to deport people suspected of blowing up innocent civilians in the UK's nearest neighbour and "so-called" ally in order to reduce the risk of terrorists striking in London. Not only that but the UK and to a lesser extent the US went straight to the military junta in charge of Algeria, an organisation completely infilterated by religous extremists, to hawk military hardware and know how. These are documented FACTS. Do you think that 9/11 would change the UK's stance? Nope. Why? While France and almost every other country took the thing seriously and started to cooperate with each other about terrorist cells, the UK still refused to extradite terrorists to France. Only when HOME-GROWN terrorists blew up the London underground and thus changing the rules of the the game did they suddenly realise that it might be better actually doing what they were preaching to others about terrorists - essentially the propaganda had been found out to be completely hollow. Within 2 months of the July 2005 bombings terrorists were deported to Paris; 10 years after the first requests, 4 years after 9/11, 2 years after the invasion of Iraq...

So in answering your question EW3, I KNOW that not being involved over-seas reduces your chances of terrorists blowing you up - that's exactly why the UK didn't do anything about it for years and years. Only now they have realised what others like France have know for years - that burying your head in the sand is NO protection. And, France and others were completely in the know that the invasion of Iraq was nothing to do with terrorists - since that hadn't been taken seriuosly anyway, and that there must have been other unrelated reasons. That off course doesn't stop pathetic name calling (cheese eating surrender monkeys) and lame accusations of having submitted  to islamists (France will soon be an Islamic state) etc etc etc
 
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EW3       11/11/2006 7:35:42 AM
My question was meant as a more generic one that could apply to any country, in that no matter what your foreign policy is if they want to terrorise you, they will.
Know very little about the specifics of the UK policies. 
Am cursious, what is the leading cause of your view that Blair doesn't do enough?  Immigration?
Reason I ask is I'm looking at a similar situation in the US.  We don't have a secure border, and that makes it difficult to take other policies seriously.  (at least for me)
 
 
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EW3       11/11/2006 7:37:02 AM
 
Must have had a complete brain cramp, I reread your post and you already answer my question.
Sorry
 
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