A report yesterday from The Sunday Times showed just how bad UK’s terror problem has become.
Intelligence officers have identified 23,000 jihadist extremists living in Britain as potential terrorist attackers, it emerged yesterday.
The scale of the challenge facing the police and security services was disclosed by Whitehall sources after criticism that multiple opportunities to stop the Manchester bomber had been missed.
About 3,000 people from the total group are judged to pose a threat and are under investigation or active monitoring in 500 operations being run by police and intelligence services. The 20,000 others have featured in previous inquiries and are categorised as posing a “residual riskâ€.
Many security officials gave us more insight on how dangerous this situation has become.
Senior National Co-ordinator for Counter-Terrorism Neil Basu revealed that terror suspects are being arrested “on a near daily basis†in Britain shortly after the Westminster attack – an early hint at the scale of the challenge which Britain faces.
Anthony Glees, the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies director who recently estimated the number of jihadists in Britain at “between 6,000 and 10,000â€, described the Whitehall revelations as “horrifyingâ€.
“To have 23,000 potential killers in our midst is horrifying. We should double the size of MI5, as we did in World War Two, and expand the number of intelligence-led police by thousands,†he said.
“We can’t go on as if this wasn’t happening.â€
This is just another example of the trouble Europe faces with Islamic terror. Their open border, pro-refugee policies have put their citizens in grave danger.
