The revelation, hitherto suppressed, which has come out of today's guilty verdicts is that two men who were obviously friends and contacts of the five men convicted today were Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shezhad Tanweer, two of the July 7th 2005 suicide bombers who killed over 50 people on the London tube. Both men were tracked on four occasions by MI5 while engaged in discussions with the men convicted today, yet MI5 neither arrested them or passed their details on to the West Yorkshire Police as possible terror suspects.
The upshot of this revelation, of course, is that angry suggestions are being made of a breakdown in communication by MI5 which could have meant that over 50 people died on 7/7 at the hands of men who could have been apprehended earlier.
Well it's not often I agree with John Reid, our Home Secretary, but this afternoon he said though it is a tragedy that these two men were left free to commit the terrible carnage on the London tube, hindsight is a wonderful thing and that, although Khan and Tanweer had been under observation by MI5, they were considered to be on the periphery of the investigation. Neither man had a record and neither man was heard discussing bomb plots or explosives. There simply were not enough operatives to keep a tail on every Muslim who may have come into contact with the suspects, without their being some significant grounds that they were an integral part of the network and such was not the case. The fact that they subsequently proved to be part of another, lethal cell was tragic and would appear that MI5 made a wrong call but one which, given the pressure and the circumstances, is all too understandable.
The real problem of course is the viper we are now nursing in our national bosom. The story that was revealed today of Mullahs in mosques all over Britain ostensibly preaching the pure faith of Islam yet in secret gatherings of chosen youngsters they are preaching Jihad, of the infiltration of youth clubs and boxing clubs used by young Muslims by Jihadists who are sometimes paying to send these disaffected youngsters to Al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistan, is truly frightening.
The judge in today's trial in his summing up referred to the five British Muslims as 'traitors' who had 'betrayed their country' and in that is encapsulated the frightening problem we face. For these men do not see national boundaries as 'their country' or as something to betray. Regardless of where they make their home, the spiritual home is Islam and, for many, an international Islamic Caliphate which knows no national boundaries.
So in a democracy which, over the last 50 years has absorbed people from many Islamic countries and now has 2 million Muslims in our midst, how do we know who are our friends and who are our enemies? The task for MI5 must be utterly thankless. It's not as if we are necessarily importing terrorists, we are breeding them! Families who arrived here many years ago as immigrants and were content to live in peace and make their homes here have produced children, maybe three generations on, born in Britain, educated in our schools and universities, and who showed no particular interest in Islam as youngsters, yet suddenly in their teens they become bitter and angry Jihadists and suicide bombers. How do you anticipate this?
Todays operation has been a success for the police and the security services, let's be clear about that. Operation Crevice has been a success. One Islamic cell has been chopped out before it could do any damage.
But it's like cutting off the head of the Hydra. Another will spring up in its place and, at the current estimate, there are 200 Islamic sleeper cells in the United Kingdom and one is grimly reminded of the warning issued by another terrorist organisation, the IRA, many years ago after a failed operation when they sent the following message to the British Government:
"Congratulations. Today you got lucky - but then you have to get lucky every time. We only have to get lucky once!"
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