– OVER KILLING

A controversial comprehensive anti terror strategy was unveiled by UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith on Tuesday 03/24/2009. The new anti-terror strategy includes teaching 60,000 ordinary Britons,  including shop owners, hotel staff and people working in sports stadiums,  how to spot potential terrorists and how to best react in case of a terrorist attack (see – Risky-Idea).

Critics said the move is turning Britain into a Big Brother state by making people snoop on each other. UK is about to have the largest anti-terror force in the world relative to its population with over 3,000 police officers designated solely to encounter terror alongside the Intelligence services MI6 abroad and MI5 in UK. Britain is also the only country among the Western democracies which enable to arrest terror suspects for 21 days before the first court appearance. (Israel, despite being under constant terror threat, has no special detention law for terror suspects).

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith defended the new program arguing London could not rely on its excellent police and intelligence officials only. A more “vigilant” public could help stop attacks and contain their worst effects. A report published by the Home Office claimed the threat of dirty (nuclear) bombs, biological or chemical weapons assembled from parts obtained on the black market have emerged. The report warns that failed states such as Iraq and Afghanistan make it easier for terrorists to obtain materials to build dirty bombs.

Britain, according to the paper, is home to most Al Qaeda terror cells in Europe; at the same time, many new, self-starting groups have formed that have no ties to Al Qaida at all. The report also identifies groups from Africa, the Middle East (particularly Iraq and Yemen), Afghanistan and Pakistan as threats to British security.

Pakistan has been a major source of concern for Western anti-terror officials, with Al Qaida affiliated organizations allegedly having several camps and hideouts in the region bordering Afghanistan. Prime Minister Gordon Brown already declared in his last visit in Pakistan, in 12/2008, that three-quarters of all serious terror plots in Britain have their roots in Pakistan.

More than 20 Britons trained by terrorists in Pakistan are already back in Britain and could plot attacks, Sky News reported, in a perfect timing, on Tuesday 03/24/2009 (see – 20 – Britons ).

Given the fact that there are over 700,000 British citizens from Pakistani descent which keep close relations with their native homeland, relatives and friends in Pakistan the number of 20 suspects, whose names are known to authorities, is almost meaningless and it is even encouraging that there are only 20 like those and not 2000 of them. It is almost certain that the number of young Muslims who are going through radicalization in UK itself is much higher.

UK already joined USA in the war In Iraq in 2003 based on false accusations that Iraq obtained some sort of weapon of mass destruction – WMD. All those accusations were proven wrong and baseless. Since 2003 it is USA, who is monitoring the situation in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan. The risk of distributing materials to build a dirty bomb comes from countries like Pakistan, which already distributed, through Dr’Abdul-Kadir Khan, nuclear technology to the most dangerous countries in the world, and is crumbling from within (see – As If Democracy), from Iran, North Korea and the countries from former Soviet Union.  

Spain was also a subject to a major terror attack in 03/2004, the Madrid Trains Bombing. Spain, like almost all other European countries, has a large Muslim community with strong ties to Morocco and Algeria. Despite that Spain did not force down its democratic values and manages to encounter terror successfully since then. UK had always the tendency to over react on the terror threat in expense of its Democratic values.  

 

 

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