MI5: Al-Qa'eda recruiting UK children for terror
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 4:58pm GMT 05/11/2007
Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda terror group is recruiting British children as young as 15 to wage a campaign of carnage against their own country, the new head of MI5 has said.
Gimson Unbound: Talking terror
Read: Jonathan Evans's speech in full
In his first public speech since taking over the security service in the summer, Jonathan Evans said Islamists were "radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism".
Mr Evans said the threat has yet to reach its peak
Mr Evans said the threat posed by al-Qa'eda had yet to reach its peak despite one successful bomb attack and several thwarted atrocities.
He also revealed in a speech in Manchester that al-Qa'eda was using the chaos in Iraq as cover for its overseas forays.
While Pakistan remained the base for the "core" leadership which controls its activities, "there is no doubt now that al-Qa'eda in Iraq aspires to promote terrorist attacks outside Iraq," he said.
Mr Evans added: "There is no doubt there is training activity and terrorist planning in East Africa - particularly in Somalia - which is focused on the UK.
"And there is no doubt that the extension of what one might call the 'al-Qa'eda franchise' to other groups in other countries - notably in Algeria - has created a significant upsurge in terrorist violence in these countries."
His warnings will fuel the growing political row over the length of time terror suspects should be detained without charge.
advertisementA new terrorism Bill to be announced in the Queen's Speech will propose increasing the time limit from 28 days to as much as 56 days.
Although Mr Evans steered clear of taking sides in any political controversy he outlined the scale of the threat on which ministers will rely to make their case for tougher laws..
"MI5 has now identified around 2,000 individuals who we believe pose a direct threat to national security and public safety because of their support for international terrorism," he said.
"This increase from 1600 in November 2006 is due both to improved coverage of extremist communities and to the continued flow of new recruits to the extremist cause."
He added: "Extremists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in the UK.
"This year, MI5 has seen individuals as young as 15 and 16 implicated in terrorist-related activity.
"The UK needs to protect its children from exploitation by violent extremists."
Mr Evans said the battle of ideologies would be a long one because the extremists worked in historical timescales.
"If the UK only reacts tactically while its enemies plan strategically, then we will struggle to meet this challenge," he said.
"The struggle against violent extremism relies not only on good intelligence and law enforcement, but also on the determination and perseverance of us all to resist extremism and to protect a decent, tolerant and open society."
Mr Evans said the successful and attempted attacks in Britain had not been random plots by disparate groups but co-ordinated and deliberate actions ordered by al-Qa'eda's leadership.
"The majority of these attacks, successful or otherwise, have taken place because al-Qa'eda has a clear determination to mount terrorist attacks against the United Kingdom," he said.
"This remains the case today, and there is no sign of it reducing. So although MI5 and the police are investigating plots, and thwarting them, on a continuing basis, we do not view them in isolation.
"Al-Qa'eda is conducting a deliberate campaign against us. It is the expression of a hostility towards the UK which existed long before September 11 2001.
"It is evident in the wills and letters left behind by actual and would-be bombers."
Ministers say one reason why longer detention is needed to question suspects is the growing complexity of the conspiracies now being uncovered.
Mr Evans said: "We now see different levels of sophistication. Yes, we have seen unsophisticated attempts to kill and injure, but we have also seen complex, logistically effective plots, which require a high degree of expertise and accurate targeting.
"We have to pay equal attention to both the crude and the complex. Because the primitive can be just as deadly as the sophisticated."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=P0NUPBS1OUA1ZQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/11/05/nevans105.xml ---------------------------------------------------------------------------The old head of Mi5 intelligence knows that al-Qaeda is not a terrror group. Evans has used al-Qaeda here as a buzzword for islamist extremism, of which there are multiple groups and ideological stances and newtorks of networks. al-Qaeda does not have a leadership, this has long been exposed as a myth and the last time I checked Mi5s' website, they didn't convey al-Qaeda as an organization or group with a leadership. To portray al-Qaeda like this is - as a group with a leadership - is simply for prosecution and direction of responsibilty purposes.
Taking out al-Qaeda's 'leadership' i.e bin-Laden and his closer associates will not make al-Qaeda or islamist extremism go away. I think it will experience a loss in finance at worst. Whats more is that al-Qaeda does not rely on brainwashing to recruit members, many muslim extremists set out to become a part of the al-Qaeda network.
Once these realities are faced, we can focus on the real threat of islamist extremism, which is not represented by organizations lead by henchmen but political radicalness guided by religion. Much of al-Qaeda terror attacks are very much political as they are terrorist. 7/7 came as a response to the Iraq invasion.
The al-Qaeda ideology and other islamic extremists ideologies gets stronger everytime the west inteferes with middle-eastern affairs and I fear that an invasion of Iran will produce even worse reactions by the muslim world than we have seen so far. The irony of the 'War on Terror' so far, is that it has infact created terrorists. Urban cities in Iraq for example, a scapegoat for the war on terror, have been turned into warzones, making for real life terrorist training camps. CIA reports confirm that such cities have become a magnet for terrorists.
