Gone : MI5: Threat of al-Qaeda attack in Britain now highest since 9/11

Sunday, February 25, 2007

MI5: Threat of al-Qaeda attack in Britain now highest since 9/11

Today's London Telegraph reports that "secret intelligence documents reveal" that "the terrorist threat facing Britain from home-grown al-Qaeda agents is higher than at any time since the September 11 attacks in 2001."

This follows a November report by Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director-General of MI5, Britain's domestic spy agency, that warned there were some 1,600 'identified individuals" actively plotting terror in Britain, in 30 known networks, working on at least 30 different terrorist plots.

The secret document, says the Telegraph, also claims that al-Qaeda is now a "world-wide organisation with a foothold in virtually every Muslim country in North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia."

About me

In fall 2007, I started working for the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies, a think tank founded by Afghans based in Kabul, Afghanistan, to build Afghan policy research expertise.

In 2006 Palgrave published a book I cowrote, "Jihad and International Security," with Jalil Roshandel.

Now I'm watching what I see to be the last gasp of a nonviable movement: militant, insurgent jihadism. This movement has killed many more Muslims than polytheists, infidels, or non-Muslims. It has also done more to damage the image of Islam than any other force in 1400 years of Islamic history.

"Prior to 9/11, who in the modern West ever worried about Islam? The jihadists have succeeded in casting suspicion on an entire religion, a substantial percentage of the world’s population, and centuries of Islamic history, in addition to all the widows and orphans they have created.

"It is unfortunate that Muslims who don’t terrorize people can’t command headlines. But that’s the way the media operates, if it bleeds it leads."

Me, Sharon Chadha, in an interview by Pooja at Instablogs.