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'UK faces 15-year terror fight'
08/07/2007 14:02 - (SA)
London - Britain faces a 15-year battle against Islamist extremism, the country's new security adviser said Sunday as police were given more time to question five suspects over three failed car bombs.
The country's former highest ranking naval officer, Admiral Sir Alan West, told the Sunday Telegraph that Britain was facing its greatest ever threat but a new emphasis was needed, with prevention of radicalisation at its heart.
"This is not a quick thing. I believe it will take 10 to 15 years. But I think it can be done as long as we as a nation apply ourselves to it and it's done across the board," he was quoted as saying.
West was thrust into the limelight just a day into his new role after two car bombs were discovered in central London on June 29 and a flaming Jeep Cherokee slammed into Glasgow airport's main terminal the following day.
One of the suspects, 27-year-old Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, appeared before a London court Saturday charged with conspiring to cause explosions. He was remanded in custody.
His appearance came as low-key ceremonies were held in London to mark the second anniversary of the 2005 suicide attacks, which killed 52 commuters and the four bombers and injured more than 700.
Condemnation
At the same time, Muslim leaders met in London to condemn the extremists and call on followers to help tackle the threat.
Saturday evening, Scotland Yard said a magistrate had given detectives an extra week to detain and question five other suspects, most of them with links to, or who worked in, Britain's state-run National Health Service (NHS).
In Britain, police have up to 28 days to keep security suspects in custody, subject to regular judicial review, after which they must be either charged or released.
A seventh suspect, 27-year-old Indian doctor Kafeel Ahmed, who was pulled from the burning wreckage of the Glasgow attack, remained in a critical condition and was under armed guard in a Scottish hospital.
As the investigation continued into the failed attacks, Sunday newspapers assessed the extent of the extremist threat facing Britain.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that the former head of Britain's domestic intelligence service MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, has said there are more than 100 suspects awaiting trial in Britain on terrorist-related offences.
Quoting from an article she wrote for the periodical "Policing: A Journal of Policing and Practice", it said she considers a chemical, biological, radiological or even nuclear attack remained a "very real possibility".
Hotspots
The News of the World cited an MI5 document as saying the number of al-Qaeda cells in Britain had doubled in Britain in the last year and there were now 219 "hotspots of extremist activity".
"Cells are popping up everywhere. They're spreading like a virus," one unnamed senior security service source was quoted as saying.
"The frustrating thing is that we cannot keep them all under surveillance. It's really only a matter of time before one slips through the net and we get another bomb attempt."
The Sunday Times said at least one of the five suspects in custody over the failed London and Glasgow attacks had been in recent contact with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
It said Britain's Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) had received intelligence earlier this year that an attack was being planned to coincide with the departure from office of prime minister Tony Blair.
And The Observer said Kafeel Ahmed was a "known associate" of a senior Al-Qaeda figure.
It quoted a source as saying that he was linked to Algerian-born Abbas Boutrab, 29, who was arrested in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 2003 and jailed for six years in 2005 for plotting to blow up an airliner.
The newspaper said Ahmed met Boutrab in Belfast while studying for a master's degree in aeronautical engineering at Queen University between 2001 and 2004.
- AFP
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