Author: Antony Barnett, Jamie Doward and Mark
Townsend
Publication: The Observer
Date: May 14, 2006
URL: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1774572,00.html
MI5 source reveals a 'current, relentless
and increasing' security threat since 7 July attacks as radical imam is set
to be released from jail
The number of Islamic terror suspects in Britain
being targeted by the security service MI5 has soared to 1,200, a 50 per cent
rise since the London suicide bombings last July.
In a stark warning about the threat posed
by Islamic radicals living in Britain, a senior intelligence source told The
Observer that some of the public and politicians were failing to realise the
risk facing the UK: 'In July 2005 we had 800 targets. I wish it was still
at that level.'
He said that MI5 had identified another 400
targets since the bombings, suggesting that, rather than the threat to security
from British-based terrorists being reduced, it had escalated since the attacks
which killed 52 people. In September 2001, the security services estimated
the number of UK-based terror suspects posing a 'risk to national security'
at around 250, a figure that now stands almost five times higher. The intelligence
source offered no explanation as the reason for the continued growth in Islamic
radicalisation, but said the threat was 'current, relentless and increasing'.
Disclosure of this dramatic rise in potential
terror suspects comes as it emerges that the radical imam who played a critical
role in influencing one of the 7 July bombers is to walk free from prison
within weeks. Abdullah al-Faisal was sentenced to seven years in prison in
2003 after being convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred.
The government's official account of the 7
July bombings published last week makes it clear that Jermaine Lindsay attended
at least one of Faisal's lectures and listened to his lectures on tapes.
At his trial a court was told how Faisal,
who branded non-Muslims cockroaches that should be exterminated, called on
his followers to learn how to use rifles, fly planes and use missiles to kill
'unbelievers'. In one tape, Faisal - who attended Brixton Mosque in south
London, where the shoebomber Richard Reid met Zacharias Moussaoui, the only
man to be jailed for his part in the 11 September attacks on America - tells
Muslim women to prepare their children for jihad by giving them toy guns.
The Observer understands Faisal is soon to
be released having served little more than half of his sentence. In preparation
for his release, an order for deportation to his native Jamaica was filed
by Home Office officials on 30 March. His lawyers are believed to have made
representations to the Home Office in an attempt to secure his release on
parole pending deportation. The move is likely to raise concerns that Faisal
will be free to preach his extremist views once he has been returned to Jamaica,
from where a number of Islamic terrorists have originated, including Lindsay.
Meanwhile this week lawyers acting on behalf
of the family of one of the victims of the London bombings will notify the
Home Secretary, John Reid, they are launching legal action over the government's
response to the 7 July attacks.
Having sought legal opinion following last
Thursday's publication of the two investigations into the attacks, City law
firm Leigh Day & Co will commence a legal challenge against the government's
decision not to hold a public inquiry into the atrocities. Opposition politicians
joined survivors of the attacks and victims' families calling for such an
inquiry.
Acting on behalf of the family of Behnaz Mozakka,
47, who was killed when Lindsay detonated his explosive on the Piccadilly
line tube, lawyers will cite a number of key unanswered question that the
government has a 'duty to answer'.
Their case will be brought using human rights
legislation which indicates that a state has a duty to investigate where it
can be claimed that a government could bear some responsibility.
