Author: Patrick Walters
Publication: The Australian
Date: September 23, 2006
URL: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20459724-601,00.html
The public is still not fully aware of the
gravity of the threat posed by Islamist extremists, Britain's anti-terror
supremo
Britain's top counter-terrorist cop has no
doubt the nature of the threat has changed dramatically. Peter Clarke, Scotland
Yard's 51-year-old head of counter-terrorism, talks with quiet resolution
about the challenge of Islamist terrorism and how it has turned British policing
upside down.
People often say to Clarke how well placed
the British authorities must be to deal with Islamist terror given their long
experience of Irish Republican Army killers.
No, he responds emphatically. It's a whole
new ball game with no defined rules of engagement or carefully delineated
boundaries.
"The current terrorist threat is almost
the reverse of all those parameters," Clarke said in Canberra this week.
"What we see is global in origin, global
in ambition, global in reach. The networks are loose, they are fluid and they
are incredibly resilient," Clarke told a security conference.
Defeating the threat demands a level of resources,
including sustained surveillance, unprecedented in modern law enforcement.
"Unless you have pace and scale on your side, you will fail to deal with
these terrorist conspiracies that we are currently seeing," he stressed.
Clarke tells Inquirer the threat posed by
radical Islamists in Britain is growing in scale and complexity. "I think
the only sensible conclusion is that it is ... because if you look at the
pace of terrorist activity since 9/11, it's clearly unabated and there appears
to be a consistency, almost a regularity, in the attack patterns.
"I don't want to sound unnecessarily
gloomy, but I don't see many positive signs in terms of it being diminished."
He points out that British authorities have
managed to foil four or five attacks in the past 12 months. But the "sad
probability" is that another attack will get through at some time.
Clarke brings nearly 30 years of experience
to his role as national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism investigations,
having joined the Metropolitan Police in 1977 with a law degree from Bristol
University.
His postings included a stint in the late
1990s as commander of the royalty and diplomatic protection department, with
responsibility for the security of the royal family, before taking on his
present job at New Scotland Yard in 2002.
Since 9/11 there has been a four-fold increase
in the number of Metropolitan Police officers dedicated to investigating terrorism.
In the next few weeks there will be a shake-up as Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist
branch merges with the force's special branch to form a dedicated counter-terrorism
command.
"That will be quite a historic change.
It's a big move for us to do that," Clarke says. "That will create
a single large department as big as many medium-sized police forces in the
UK, which will greatly enhance our capabilities."
The Metropolitan Police will co-ordinate other
counter-terrorism units across Britain's 43 separate local police forces,
building surveillance, intelligence and analytical assets.
Clarke says Britain's experience of Islamist
terror, including last year's London bombings and the recently thwarted plot
to blow up airliners flying to the US, is driving far-reaching changes in
the way police now operate.
It used to be that police would only intervene
in the final stages of a terrorist plot, making arrests at or near the point
of attack, with the strongest possible weight of evidence to put before a
court. However, Clarke says the scale of the threat means "we can no
longer afford to wait until that moment".
"It's a complete shift in scale. Mentally
we have had to completely change our response in terms of interdiction and
intervention to prevent an increased risk to the public."
Clarke says earlier action to pre-empt a mass
casualty attack also dictates the need to engage closely with local communities
as a key element of counter-terrorism strategy. He believes the British public
is still not fully aware of the gravity of the threat posed by Islamist terror
groups. This is despite the fact there are now 90 people awaiting trial on
terrorism charges.
"We have a whole series of trials which
over the coming months and years will unfold in the UK. When that hard evidence
is produced the public are able to see what has been planned over the last
months and years, that will contribute to their understanding of the threat."
When Metropolitan Police discovered a cache
of military training equipment in the Finsbury Park mosque in January 2003,
it took three years before the authorities could inform the public of the
find because of contempt issues.
"From a law enforcement perspective,
the scale of these investigations is simply immense. The level of investigative
activity has never been higher," Clarke says.
He acknowledges that the number of people
of interest to British authorities looking "right across the span of
terrorist activity" is now in the thousands. These included at one end
of the spectrum people prepared to mount attacks themselves, and at the other
those who might simply facilitate travel or supply forged documentation, or
those may one day join the jihadist cause.
"The numbers of people we have to be
interested in are in the thousands but I am not saying that we have thousands
of people under surveillance or that there are thousands of terrorists in
the UK."
International co-operation between law enforcement
authorities is critical and transnational intelligence sharing is growing
all the time.
"What we are looking at is a global movement
that operates across borders. They are extremely mobile. Travel is a key feature
of how terrorists are planning and organising themselves."
Clarke says Britain is working closely with
Pakistani authorities to better understand the extent of links with British
groups, including the 2005 bombers.
The July disruption of a plot to blow up airliners
travelling to the US involved the arrest of 17 suspects, of whom 11 have now
been charged with conspiracy to murder.
Clarke warns it is vital that the aviation
industry examines the implications of the foiled plot for air travel.
The plotters had been planning to smuggle
liquid explosives on board several planes.
"I can't go into details about the methodology
except to say its very innovative. That will give a clue to the fact that
now in response ... new protective measures are required. The methodology
is such that there must be an enduring threat to air transport."
So a serious threat to aviation safety remains
which has to be addressed?
"Absolutely," comes the reply.
