In a major development, The Times reports that among the individuals arrested in last week’s terror raids is Al-Qaeda’s leader in Britain. Government officials say that, in addition to the plot to bomb the transatlantic airliners, he’s been involved in other planned terrorist acts over the past few years. Legal considerations prevent his name from being released

The officials believe that he was instrumental in sending the ringleader of at least one previous British terror plot for training at a camp in Pakistan last year. He is described by MI5 as the senior figure in a British terror network involving Kashmiri, north African and Iraqi cells.

It was the arrest of one his associates in Pakistan last week that prematurely triggered Operation Overt, which foiled the transatlantic airliner plot. The origins of Operation Overt are said by some American officials to have begun in 2003. However, the full-scale inquiry is not thought to have been launched until last August when dozens of surveillance officers were assigned to monitor the Al-Qaeda leader’s home.

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In an editorial, The Times avers that Britain has become a breeding ground for home-grown terrorists “can be ascribed to timidity on behalf of the authorities, wedded as they are to a multiculturalism that isolates many young men in ghettos.” The editorial adds that the low-level war that must be waged against “a generation of disaffected Muslims” will mean “applying what may seem illiberal measures in order to save lives.”
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An outstanding op-ed by Michael Portillo in The Times criticizes other policies of successive British governments and popular attitudes:

So those who argue that Britain has brought terror to its shores by supporting George W Bush should admit that we have imported it unwittingly by recognising our obligations to Commonwealth countries such as Pakistan, by pursuing liberal policies on immigration, by extending asylum to those who faced “persecution” without much reflection on why they found themselves in that position, and by ignoring the activities of “dissidents” based here, despite warnings about them from allies such as France and Saudi Arabia.

More uncomfortably still for those who argue the simplistic anti-Bush line, Britain could be an Al-Qaeda target precisely because it is a nation divided and given to self-flagellation. After the Lockerbie bombing it fell to me as a transport minister to meet some of the grieving relatives. One man who had lost his daughter told me that he blamed airport security, not the terrorist. Even allowing for his suffering I can make no sense of the remark, but it seems to typify a misplaced magnanimity that springs from unwarranted collective guilt.

[ . . . ] Might not Al-Qaeda reasonably believe that another massive atrocity could bring Blair’s leadership to an end and usher in a series of less hard-nosed administrations? Might they not also reason that Britain is a tempting target because in vast numbers the British refuse to recognise the nature of the extreme Islamist threat that confronts us?

For many Britons a new massacre would supply fresh evidence of the wickedness of the Iraq war or the plight of Palestinians or the downtrodden condition of British minorities. The more obvious explanation, that a group of religious fanatics is bent on destroying us and achieving world domination, would somehow elude them.

[ . . . ] The assault by Al-Qaeda on Muslim governments and against the West cannot be sidestepped. Pacifism is not an option. It does not inoculate against terror. Al-Qaeda launched 9/11 to open a front between Muslims and the rest. The West’s failures in Iraq may have helped Al-Qaeda to attract more recruits. But if the invasion had not occurred, Saddam Hussein’s untamed defiance would have encouraged Al-Qaeda too. Western weakness would have made the fundamentalists believe that victory was easy.

[ . . . ] David Cameron and Gordon Brown must step forward to give Britain leadership. If the political class does not unite we will be in more danger from terror. Unless our leaders educate the British people on the unavoidable threat that we face we will be more vulnerable. Brown and Cameron, even more than Blair, must become statesmen. Let us hope that they can rise to the occasion.

If only the Brits, French, Germans, and Americans (including some of our politicians and MSM columnists who don’t have to be named) would listen to these words of wisdom, the West would stand a better chance of defeating the jihadis.

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The Telegraph reports that it’s feared that the recruitment of Muslim students at British universities to take part in terrorist plot. A dossier of extremist Islamic literature has been uncovered by newspaper on the campus of a north London university, one of whose students has suspected links to the alleged terrorist attack. Cassette tapes produced by al-Muhajiroun, the disbanded militant organisation that praised the “Magnificent 19” who carried out the September 11 2001 attacks, were also discovered at the university’s portable buildings used as a prayer room and library. Al-Muhajiroun was headed by Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical London cleric forced into exile in Lebanon last year. The portable buildings are on land owned by the university, which also part-funds the Islamic Society.

The problem is widespread. According to the director of Brunel University’s centre for intelligence and security studies, extremist Muslim groups had been detected at more than 20 institutions over the past 15 years. Security sources report that several of the terrorist plot detainees are suspected of links to universities.

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The Guardian reports that British security sources revealed that up to two dozen terror investigations were operating across the country and that a number of suspects associated with last week’s plot remained at large. Downing Street sources emphasised that the threat of an attack by groups connected with those arrested still loomed. ‘Despite the apparent breakthrough, it would be wrong to assume that in the case of groups like al-Qaeda it is a question of just one throw of the dice,’ one source said. ‘There are a series of interlocking cells. Cells overlap… certainly in this case, we can’t be certain that everything has been disrupted.’
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In an editorial, the left-wing Guardian denies that the West is waging war on Islam and says that jihadis must not be appeased:

But even within the bleakest possible analysis of Mr Blair’s foreign policy, it is still simply not true that the West is waging war on Islam. Just as it is not true that the CIA was really behind the 11 September attacks or any other arrant conspiratorial nonsense that enjoys widespread credence in the Middle East and beyond. It is also a logical and moral absurdity to imply, as some critics of British policy have done, that mass murder is somehow less atrocious when it is motivated by an elaborate narrative of political grievance.

If young British Muslims are alienated, that is sad and their anger should be addressed. But anyone whose alienation leads them to want to kill indiscriminately has crossed a line into psychopathic criminality. Policy cannot be dictated by the need to placate such people.

British Muslim leaders are entitled, along with everybody else, to raise questions about the conduct and consequences of Mr Blair’s foreign policy. But they have a more immediate responsibility to promote the truth: that Britain is not the aggressor in a war against Islam; that no such war exists; that there is no glory in murder dressed as martyrdom and that terrorism is never excused by bogus accounts of historical victimisation.

Wow!