Home grown religious extremists bent on mass murder:
“The numbers of people who we have to be interested in are into the thousands,” he said. “That includes a whole range of people, not just terrorists, not just attackers, but the people who might be tempted to support or encourage or to assist.”
Read the rest here.
And here is something interesting that supports what Bush is saying about the war in Iraq:
The programme also highlights the cases of foreign terrorists who have set up base on British soil.
They include the French Algerian suicide bomber Idris Bazis, who moved to Manchester after training to become a “jihad warrior” in Afghanistan.
He lived in Manchester for two years before blowing himself up in Iraq.
Asked by the show’s host Peter Taylor if he thinks there is a “pipeline” feeding young fundamentalists from Britain into Iraq, Mr Clarke answers: “What we do see is individuals who, with connections, who managed to facilitate people’s travel.
“I think that’s a better way to describe it. There’s probably a collection of individuals who are happy to organise the travel of others.”
Instead of blowing themselves up in England, they are doing it in Iraq, just as Bush said that they would.
(Link via Hugh Hewitt)
Updated to add: As well as arresting the 15 suspects, there was also a raid on a jihad training camp in England:
Anti-terror police raided what is believed to be Britain’s first home-grown jihad training camp in the grounds of a former English ballet school.
They rounded up a network of alleged terrorist recruiters after spying on them at the secluded country mansion.
It is understood the group, which included several recent converts to Islam, were being schooled in fundamentalist ideals associated with Al Qaeda.
(Link via little green footballs)