Two days before the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings, a new report has stated that the majority of Islamic terrorist activity in the UK over the last ten years has involved British citizens.
The Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC) compiled the profiles of 124 individuals convicted of Islamic terrorism offences and found that 69% of offences between 1999 and 2009 were carried out by British citizens. Almost a third of those had attended university. The research also suggested that seven of the UK’s eight major bomb plot cells contained individuals with direct links to al Qaeda. In addition, a number of British Muslims have fought or trained with extremist Islamist groups abroad.
A preview of the report can be found here: Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections
Douglas Murray, Director of the CSC, said: ‘The report proves how great a threat violent Islamism poses to the world – and the fact that Britain is at the centre of this global struggle.’
Robin Simcox, co-author of the report, said that: ‘There are clear trends emerging with those involving themselves in terrorist activity in the UK. It is crucial that this is recognised and then acted upon by the relevant authorities.’
Last week Met Assistant Commissioner John Yates warned that Britain could not afford to cut its anti-terrorist policing due to the continuing threat from al Qaida.
Andrea Minichiello Williams commented: “It is no surprise that most of those convicted of Islamic terrorism offences are British citizens. Radical Islam is only too willing to fill the void left in a broken society where the Christian moral framework and family values have been eroded so dramatically in the last fifty years. We need to counter this by bringing the positive hope of the Christian message into the public square and seeking to reclaim what has been lost.”