Police Hunt Rogue Terror Gangs In Poison Alert (UK)

Three networks of suspected Islamic terrorists were being hunted by police and intelligence services last night amid fears that they are planning a strike on Britain with biological weapons. Convinced that an attack in Britain is inevitable, senior security sources revealed to The Observer that the groups are being sought following raids in London and Manchester by officers searching for the poison ricin.

The sources admitted that tracing the terrorist groups was extremely difficult given the rise of a new generation of 'clean skin' extremists - young, radicalised Islamic militants with no previous links to terrorism.

The disclosures came as police announced they had detained three men at one of Britain's busiest airports and arrested them under anti-terrorism legislation. Immigration officials at Gatwick held the men, aged 28, 29 and 30, on Thursday while they were 'in transit'.

They are being held under the Terrorism Act 2000 at an unnamed police station in central London. Police refused to disclose any further details, including the men's ethnic origin and whether they were leaving or arriving in Britain when they were stopped.

In a separate development, three men were arrested yesterday under the Prevention of Terrorism Act after they were allegedly seen acting suspiciously near the GCHQ spy base in Cheltenham.

'Three males were arrested in the Prestbury Road, Cheltenham, following a report from a member of the public that they were acting suspiciously in the vicinity of GCHQ,' said a Gloucestershire police spokeswoman.

'They are being questioned as a routine exercise in light of the Prevention of Terrorism Act.'

The heightened activity by the security services came as Britain's most senior policeman warned today that terrorists 'linked to al-Qaeda' remain at large in Britain. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said a large number of people were being watched and 'a number' have still to be arrested.

The groups known to be active are believed to be operating independently of one another. There are fears that one or more of the networks possess ricin, traces of which were allegedly found in a raid on a London flat.

Last week a 27-year-old Algerian appeared in court charged with the murder of a police Special Branch officer in Manchester last week. Detective Constable Stephen Oake, 40, was stabbed tduring a raid on a flat in the Crumpsall area of the city last Tuesday. Four men have been arrested in Manchester in connection with the incident.

The Manchester operation was part of the nationwide search for ricin, one of the most poisonous substances known. Four people have already appeared in court following the London raid charged with attempting to produce ricin to develop a chemical weapon. There are fears that a small quantity has been secreted somewhere in the United Kingdom.

Whitehall officials indicated that there were 'real threats out there'. One official said: 'The balance is difficult to strike. We must not sound complacent. But you can't tell people to go around wearing gas masks.'

However, senior Scotland Yard sources say that the primary threat is likely to come from suicide bombers.

'The search is being intensified all the time,' one said. 'With the IRA we could relax when we had found the bomb. We can't do that now. The threat of ricin has meant everyone going flat out to find anything else.'

Sources close to Islamic activists in the UK say militants are making themselves ready to strike if Britain goes to war with Iraq. The new generation of militants see their struggle in international terms. Britain, with its close ties to the US, is thus a key target. Such groups act alone, without reference to any leadership. Most are formed on an ad hoc basis in the UK and are not sent from overseas.

'We are looking at loose networks,' said one security source. 'The threat and the problems we are facing with Algerian networks is not group-related. These people don't consider themselves part of any group. There is not a command structure.'

One Algerian radical who was once a close associate of Abu Hamza, the extremist London-based preacher, said that the pressure on the Algerian community from the police and security services risked a backlash.

'We were persecuted in Algeria, now we are being persecuted here. There it exploded. The same will happen here,' he told The Observer. In the past ten years, 120,000 people have died in a brutal civil war between Islamic radicals and Algerian security forces. Many Algerian militants arrived in the UK in the early 1990s. Several have been given leave to remain in the UK despite their terrorist past. Two Algerian men involved in murders in their home country are living in London, one working at a mosque, another working as a security guard. Last year The Observer was shown a list of more than 20 radicals living in the UK who were wanted by the Algerian security services.

However, security officials in the UK say the issue of asylum is a 'red herring'.

'Some terrorists come through as asylum seekers, some are immigrants or travelling on tourist visas,' one said. 'If you stopped asylum, you would not stop terrorism.'

In a Sky News interview, Stevens said the police were watching 'a large number of people'.Asked if they were linked to al-Qaeda, he added: 'There's no doubt they are and we know that there are certain links with al-Qaeda and, of course, the link in with North Africa is proven with other groups as well.'

The commissioner said the police were 'on top of the situation' but admitted there was a danger 'in terms of the people out there' and there was a need to be very vigilant. 'We know these people are prepared to give their lives, are extremely ruthless and are prepared to use weapons which perhaps people who have been involved in domestic terrorism have not been prepared to use,' he said.

There's no need to be mean spirited !

Donate Here By Secure Server

Or mail checks to
FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794

or you can use

PayPal at Jimrob@psnw.com

STOP BY AND BUMP THE FUNDRAISER THREAD

"In a Sky News interview, Stevens said the police were watching 'a large number of people'. Asked if they were linked to al-Qaeda, he added: 'There's no doubt they are and we know that there are certain links with al-Qaeda and, of course, the link in with North Africa is proven with other groups as well.'"

Given that the North African (Algerian) groups are subsidiaries of al-Qaeda, that isn't too surprising a development.

In other words, Islamic terrorism is spreading among Muslims everywhere. And it will continue to spread as long as these young people are taught to admire it. The only thing that seems to turn them off is failure. You won't stop it by sitting back and "tolerating" it. I hate to say it, but we shouldn't be admitting ANY more Muslims into this country, and we should be deporting the illegals and cutting off those with student visas and green cards. We just don't need this. The Chinese and the Vietcong used to say about guerrilla warfare and terrorism that "fish swim in the ocean." If you have Muslim communities, you have places where terrorists can breed and hide.

The law gives British security forces far greater latitude than our agencies enjoy in the states. Defence of the Realm allows the police to lock up anybody who steps out of the shower wearing a towel. Hopefully, it will lead to a take-down of the Finsbury Mosque and other subversives.

Hopefully, this will be followed by the Bell Telephone Hour, as the practice was known in Vietnam.

Which means that to them, 3000 dead on 9/11 in a pinprick. Thet want mass murder in the hundreds of thousands to tens of millions.

Islam is a hideous cult and should be treated like Naziism - as an aberrent and dangerous belief system that itself is cause for removal from the U.S.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.