We have made a paradise for terrorists in our own backyard (British suicide bombers)

Everyone has been shocked by the discovery that Britain nurtured two suicide bombers of its own: Asif Hanif, who succeeded in blowing himself up in Israel, killing three others; and Omar Khan Sharif, who didn't - his bomb belt failed to explode - but who nevertheless evaded capture and is now on the run.

And yet, in truth, no one should have been shocked. Last week's incident is not even the first example of Britons being involved in attempted suicide attacks. On the basis of their interrogation of members of al-Qaeda, officers from India's Intelligence Service believe that there was a plot to hijack a British Airways plane on September 11 and crash it into the Houses of Parliament. That plot only failed because by the time the plane the terrorists had chosen to hijack was scheduled to take off (5.30pm), news of the destruction of the World Trade Center had echoed around the world, and airport authorities grounded all flights.

Over the past decade, Britain has given refuge to a host of Islamic fundamentalists wanted for terrorism in countries around the world. Before the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in 2001, the governments of France, India, Turkey, Israel, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia had all lodged protests about Britain's protection of, and refusal to extradite, known terrorists. Those protests had no effect.

Men such as Abu Qatadar - who instructed both Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, and Zacharias Moussaoui, now awaiting trial in America for his part in planning the attacks of September 11 - were allowed to remain in Britain, preaching, and often organising, terror. Qatadar arrived here nearly a decade ago claiming that he was fleeing political persecution. He was a known advocate of suicide bombings, and was wanted in Jordan for involvement in a campaign of terror. He was granted asylum in Britain.

Abd Samad Moussaoui, Zacharias Moussaoui's brother, has described how Zacharias came to England from France in search of work. He was not a fundamentalist, or even a practising Muslim - until he drifted into a south London mosque and started listening to Abu Qatadar. Moussaoui's example has been replicated scores of times. It may even be easier to turn Muslims in Britain to violent fundamentalists than it is to radicalise Muslims in, say, Saudi Arabia: those who already live under a fundamentalist state know from personal experience just how oppressive and destructive it is.

Britain has become the headquarters of choice for extremist Islamic preachers, who now have a network of organisations dedicated to sowing pure hatred: hatred of the West, of democracy, and of the values of tolerance and freedom - the very values that give them the freedom to operate here. "Your task against the infidel," says one video distributed by the fundamentalists, "is to kill their children, take their women, destroy their homes."

Successive governments have been warned in the plainest possible terms about the dangers posed by men such as Abu Qatadar, Omar Bakri (who says he "believes in the principle of establishing Islamic law . . . even if this leads to the death of all mankind") and Abu Hamza (the one-eyed sheikh who lost his hand in an explosion, and whom the Yemeni government wants for bomb attacks carried out there). Why were the warnings so resolutely ignored? For resolutely ignored they were.

It should not be forgotten that in the 1990s, Dame Stella Rimington, then the head of MI5, was so sure that Muslim terrorism was no threat that she systematically reduced the organisation's capacity to monitor Islamic fundamentalist activity in Britain. Before September 11, the Government seems to have taken the view that Islamic terrorism affected Israel and the Arab countries, but not Britain - so Britain could afford to ignore it.

That was a terrible mistake. But believing that we were insulated from Islamic terrorism only partly explains why the Government allowed leaders to flourish here. At least as important is the paralysis created by fear of offending the Muslim community in Britain. That fear has induced a kind of institutionalised political correctness that has prevented Government departments from taking the vigorous action that is needed. The fear is completely misplaced. There are more than 1.8 million Muslims in Britain. The overwhelming majority are very clear that the violent fundamentalists do not represent them or their religion. They are not insulted if action is taken against firebrands such as Abu Qatadar. They know the difference between Islam and the vicious parody of the religion touted by the fanatics. To think that they do not understand the distinction is to insult their intelligence.

Yet that, in effect, is precisely what the Government continues to do. Its measures against terrorists here are piecemeal and ineffective. For example: the Government has proscribed al-Qaeda, and made membership of it an arrestable offence, but it is still perfectly legal to belong to al-Muhajiroun - the organisation to which Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif belonged, and which has an ideology at least as militant as al-Qaeda's.

The Home Office justified that decision to me last week by emphasising the importance of distinguishing between "the peace-loving majority of Muslims and the tiny violent minority". Yet members of al-Muhajiroun are manifestly part of the tiny violent minority, not the peaceloving majority. Who, apart from the Home Office, confuses the two?

Furthermore, the Home Office is still very reluctant to extradite terrorist suspects. Bashir Nafi, who lectures on Islamic history at Birkbeck College, is wanted by US authorities for "conspiracy to murder, maim or injure persons outside the United States". The evidence against him includes transcripts of his telephone calls, in which he allegedly discusses the finances of an organisation whose goal is to create "terror, instability and panic", and which has planned suicide bombings. Mr Nafi has not been extradited from Britain. He has not even been arrested.

The Government has allowed legal complexities to tie up the process of extradition for years. Khalid al Fawwaz has been wanted by the US for his part in the bombing of its embassy in Kenya. The wrangle over whether or not to extradite him to the US had been going on for over four years. He has only just exhausted the appeals process (at a cost of £428,000 - funded by British tax-payers). The Home Secretary, however, has still not decided whether or not he will permit his extradition to America. Despite David Blunkett's allegedly "draconian" Anti-Terrorism Act, the old habits which encourage terrorists to stay and recruit here remain.

Mohamed Sifaoui, a French journalist who infiltrated a Muslim terror group and who travelled to London with them to meet "the boss", said in an interview on Channel Four's Dispatches that in his experience, "London is paradise for terrorists. They can plan terrorist attacks elsewhere, call for murder and spread the ideology of terrorism and live quite happily. It's every terrorist's dream." Unless we end that dream, we will soon wake up in a truly dreadful nightmare.

The utterly false and odious comparison between Israel and Iraq that was made by both Jack Straw and Tony Blair on a number of occasions prior to the Iraq war certainly haven't helped matters.

In fact, on many BBC programmes (radio and TV) at that time, inevitably someone would pipe up, complaining that Israel was "just as dangerous as Iraq" and nobody talked about "bombing" her.

You'd think a country having to deal with the IRA would recognize the danger of having terrorists inside, and would certainly see no correspondence between Israel and the PLO. The fact that they do is as telling as 'that shitty little country' was damning.

Until Europe comes to terms with her anti-Semitism, history can never be said to have ended.

"v-dare.com has an article about these murderers that is a bit more informative than this one."

Quite possibly, but the purpose of this article is to editorialize and not inform. It is actually an "opinion piece" in the Daily Telegraph.

"The utterly false and odious comparison between Israel and Iraq that was made by both Jack Straw and Tony Blair on a number of occasions prior to the Iraq war certainly haven't helped matters."

And they'll keep on making that comparison - especially when it serves to take the heat off their grovelling to the likes of the IRA - see the piece on Tony's lackeys Powell and Mowlam elsewhere in today's Telegraph.

If there is one comment form the article you posted which bears repeating over and over it is ;-

"Britain has become the headquarters of choice for extremist Islamic preachers, who now have a network of organisations dedicated to sowing pure hatred"

Enough!! Any UK Freepers minded to get involved in some good housekeeping are invited to contact me off-post. Moral support from our US colleagues would be much appreciated.

(By the way, is that "Chipata" as in Zambia?)

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