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UK terror threat still high
05/04/2006 08:03 - (SA)
Berlin - Investigations into last July's London suicide bombings are proceeding with no let-up, but the terrorist threat to Britain has not declined, the country's top anti-terrorism investigator said on Tuesday.
"Since July, the pace of investigation, the scale of the
threat has not diminished in any way whatsoever," Peter Clarke, the national coordinator of terrorism investigations, told a security conference in Germany.
He added: "There are no terrorist-free zones in the United
Kingdom. The footprint of international terrorism is in every
part of the country."
Clarke declined to give a progress update on the London bomb
probe, which he said involved more than 35 000 documents, 10 000 witness statements, 38 000 police exhibits and 90 000 pieces of computer evidence.
Asked about the extent of foreign backing and support for
the four young Muslim men who blew themselves up on the London
transport network on July 7 2005, killing 52 people, Clarke
told Reuters: "That's something we're still looking at."
British-born bombers
Three of the attackers who carried out Western Europe's
first suicide bombing were British-born men of Pakistani origin,
and the fourth was born in Jamaica.
Several of the plotters had travelled to Pakistan before the
bombings, but police have not said publicly if they believe they
received training, support or instructions from there.
Clarke said he had just returned from a trip to Pakistan but
this was to discuss broader co-operation issues, not specifically
the July 7 investigation.
Difficult to get intelligence
Commenting on the wider threat from Islamist radicals, he
told the conference he was concerned about the difficulty of
getting sources inside the Muslim community to come forward with
intelligence.
"Most of the cases that we have in the United Kingdom are as
a result of intelligence that has come from overseas, or from
technical means. There is not the wealth of intelligence that I
would like coming from within the communities," Clarke said.
"We must do more to build our links into the Muslim
communities, so that those who wish to reject extremism and
expel the extremists and give information about them can have
the confidence to do so."
Terrorism trials
Clarke said several "hugely important" terrorism trials in
Britain this year would present a test for the courts and
judicial system.
"These are cases, the like of which have never come before
the British courts before. The international dimension, the
sources of evidence, the types of evidence ... will not have
been tested before in our courts," he said.
In one of the cases, seven Britons went on trial last month charged with plotting to carry out bomb attacks.
Six of them were arrested in 2004 during raids in which
police found 600kg of ammonium nitrate, which can be
used to make bombs.
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