Max Musson
Western Spring
June 24, 2014
In an interview for BBC Radio 4′s The World This Weekend, Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner and head of specialist operations, warned that Britain would feel the long-term consequences of the current Syrian conflict that is now spilling over into Iraq, stating: “I’m afraid I believe that we will be living with the consequences of Syria – from a terrorist point of view, let alone the world, geopolitical consequences – for many, many, many years to come”
With estimates of British based Islamic militants currently participating in the Syrian conflict and the invasion of Iraq by ISIS forces citing numbers in excess of 500 and with previous admissions by security services that upwards of 2,000 British based militants have received military training and have gained battlefield experience in Afghanistan, we now face the a threat to Britain’s national security greater than anything since World War Two.
When we consider that during the 1980’s at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, it has been estimated that the Provisional IRA had just 300 men in active service units with a further 450 in support roles, the potential threat to Britain of several thousand military trained and battle hardened Islamic Jihadists within our midst should not be underestimated.
In the immediate aftermath of World War Two as British servicemen returned to from war, many found it difficult re-adjust to civilian life and there was a period of heightened violent crime caused by men who had grown used to settling issues through the use of force. This occurred even though we had a largely homogenous population in the late 1940s and the returning soldiers had no ethnic or religious grievances that might inflame their aggression.
Where returning Jihadists fighters are concerned however, they are overwhelmingly of alien racial, religious and ethnic backgrounds when compared with the indigenous British. As people of second and third generation immigrant stock, they have been educated to believe that their forebears were abused by British conquerors during the time of the British Empire; they have been educated to believe that their parents generation have been unfairly discriminated against and subjected to intolerable racism since immigrating to Britain; they have seen British soldiers and airmen participating with American led coalition forces in abortive wars involving the invasion and partial conquest of several Islamic nations, causing arguably the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of their co-religionists; and they have been persuaded by extremist Islamic clerics to believe that violent Jihad involving the pitiless slaughter of one’s religious enemies is both just and noble, and demanded of them by their God.
Clearly, the potential for radicalised Islamic fighters returning from war in the Middle East to participate in acts of terrorism against the British people and against the British state could hardly be stronger and given all of this, any sane politician would argue that all British based Jihadists should have their British passports and British citizenship revoked so they cannot return to this country. Furthermore, upon their return, they should be placed under arrest until they can be deemed safe to be released.
Sadly, words of warning such as those emanating from Cressida Dick, betray a decidedly different intention on the part of our current government, as the returning militants will only pose the kind of threat that Miss Dick describes if they are at liberty.
It is stated by government spokespeople that some returning Jihadists have been arrested and questioned and that they will be monitored by our security services, but given the large numbers of Jihadists involved and the fact that some of both the 7/7 bombers and the killers of Lee Rigby were supposedly under surveillance by the security services, the announcement of such measures does not fill one with confidence, especially when the best efforts of the British Army and our security services proved ultimately ineffective against the much smaller Provisional IRA.
What is more galling to learn is that the British and American governments have both contributed to the training and arming of ISIS fighters at training camps in Jordan, with the intention of assisting them in deposing Syria’s Bashir al-Assad. They are clearly a force that our own governments have contributed significantly towards the founding of, in their incompetent meddling in other nations affairs.
It is also widely believed that both the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have also been funding and arming the anti-government Jihadists in Syria and that ISIS now have more than $1billion dollars funds they have either stolen, extorted or been donated. Also, more recently, it has been revealed that leading figures from within Saddam Hussein’s former regime have joined forces with ISIS. They’ve never had it so good and they clearly pose a most potent threat to the peoples of Europe.
If ISIS are successful in establishing a Sunni Islamic caliphate in Iraq, this will provide them with a base from which to launch further terrorist attacks upon Western and Middle Eastern targets. However if they are not successful, then they will return to Britain and no doubt many of them will wish to make our nation pay for our part in bringing about their failure.
Does anyone want to take bets on how long after the end of this current war in Iraq it will be before Jihadist militants bring bombs and bullets to the streets of London and our other major towns and cities?
The time to act is now, before it is too late.
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT – The following is a video showing ISIS killers hunting down unarmed Iraqis fleeing their advance: