A Preview
of What Obama’s Youth Brigade will be doing in America!
Click to go to our Home Page
|
BBC
22.03.2009
Thousands
getting terror training
Thousands of UK workers are
being trained to help respond to a future terror attack as part of an updated
counter-terror strategy, ministers say. Suspect (Picture)
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
said shop and hotel workers would be among 60,000 people able to deal with an
incident.
The updated approach, aimed
at tackling immediate terrorist threats and the causes of extremism, would be
the most comprehensive in the world, she added.
But the Tories said not
enough action was being taken against extremists.
The Home Office’s new
counter-terrorism document - to be published on Tuesday - will go into more detail than ever
before in the interests of public accountability.
It will reflect intelligence
opinion that the biggest threat to the UK comes from al-Qaeda-linked groups and
will also take into account recent attacks on hotels in the Indian city of
Mumbai.
Ms Smith told BBC One’s
Politics Show: “What we’re completely clear about is that if we’re going to
address the threat from terrorism, we need to do that alongside the 60,000
people that we’re now training up to respond to a terrorist threat, in
everywhere from our shopping centres to our hotels.
“We need to do it alongside
the 3,000 police officers now working on counter-terror and we need to do it
with international partners.
“This is no longer something
you can do behind closed doors and in secret.”
The paper - called Contest
Two - will update the Contest strategy developed by the Home Office in 2003,
which was later detailed in the Countering International Terrorism document
released in 2006.
The updated strategy
will increase the focus on challenging individuals and groups who undermine the
UK’s “shared values” - even if they are not breaking the law.
Gordon Brown said tens of thousands of civilians had already
been trained in how to look out for suspicious behaviour
in crowded places and to react in the event of an attack.
The prime minister told the
Observer: “Today, not only the police and security and intelligence officers
and our armed forces, but also the emergency services, local councils,
businesses and community groups are involved
“Tens of thousands of men
and women throughout Britain - from security guards to store managers - have
now been trained and equipped to deal with an incident and know what to watch
for as people go about their daily business in crowded places such as stations,
airports, shopping centres and sports grounds.”
The terrorism threat level,
set by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, has since July 2007 been “severe”.
Shadow home secretary Chris
Grayling welcomed some of the proposals but said too little was being done to
tackle the “root causes of extremism”.
__________
Press TV
22.03.2009
Britain trains
civilian anti-terror force
Britain has launched a
clandestine alliance that recruits citizens and trains them to act as
undercover agents against terror suspects.
British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown said the initiative is vital for safety in the UK. According to him, tens
of thousands of civilians have already been trained for the purpose.
Brown said Sunday that the
individuals range “from security guards to store managers” who know how to
“deal with an incident and know what to watch for as people go about their
daily business in crowded places such as stations, airports, shopping centers
and sports grounds.”
Brown went on to claim that
more than two-thirds of the plots threatening the UK are linked to Pakistan,
saying al-Qaeda members in northern Pakistan and in alleged UK networks are
attempting to organize attacks in Britain.
__________
Dictionary definition of terrorism: “1. the
use of violence and threats
to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes, 2. the
state of fear and submission,”
Who is putting the public in
a state of fear, broadcasting it on air and getting it in the all news papers?
Are they politicians?
Does fear justify
intrusive governments and help build a paranoid/spy society?
__________
Daily Mail
24.03.2009
Threat of ‘dirty
bomb’ attack on Britain is increasing, warns Jacqui Smith
The risk of terrorists
obtaining the material to mount a ‘dirty bomb’ attack in Britain is rising, the
Government claimed today.
In a report to Parliament on
the current state of the terrorist threat, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed
an increasing amount of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material
has become available around the world and that it could fall into the hands of
extremists living in Britain.
The study says that some of
these substances are being sold via
the internet and warns that the growing supply, coupled with an
existing ‘demand’ among militants, means that new measures are needed to
protect the public.
Today’s report says that
British extremists have sought ‘dirty bomb’ material and suggests that they are
more likely to succeed because substances are being trafficked more than ever
around the world.
dirty bomb
There is also a claim that a
potentially growing threat is posed by ’self-starting’ terror groups only loosely linked to Al
Qaeda, which is likely
to fragment in the coming years
The 160-page report, called
Contest Two, updates a counter terrorist strategy-first published in 2003.
It says a number of factors
are driving radicalisation, including discrimination, social and political
grievances,
Miss Smith called for the
use of “civil challenge” to those who hold extremist viewpoints.
She cited the example of the
Muslim activists who recently protested
at a homecoming parade in Luton for British forces returning from Iraq.
She said: “The civil
challenge means that, if people feel it appropriate to demonstrate against our
troops coming home from defending this country abroad, we - as Government and
others - will say in turn that we think that that’s wrong.
“Not that they’ve broken the
law - one of the things we’re defending in this country is the right to free
speech, but that isn’t
free speech that will go unhindered or unchallenged by either Government or, I
think, the broader community.”
Unveiling the new Government
counter-terrorism strategy, Miss Smith also said the ‘widest range’ of people
needed to be enlisted to help deal with terrorist threats.
Shopping centre and store
managers will be among 60,000 workers trained because security and intelligence
agencies could not be ’solely’ relied upon to tackle the threat.
Ms Smith said people needed
to be ‘vigilant about the threat of an attack’ and to prepare for ‘what to do’
in the event of an atrocity.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast,
she said: ‘I think we need to enlist the widest range of people to do that.’
The news comes as reports
say Pakistan has revealed it has monitored more than 20 Britons believed to
have trained with radical militant groups and then returned to the UK.
The men who have been
tracked are believed to have trained with groups linked to Al Qaeda and the
Taliban and are thought to pose a potential threat to British security.
Sky News has reported that a
dossier of the names is expected to be handed over to security services.
The anti-terror initiative
would see staff on rail networks, at airports, public buildings and sports
venues taught to watch for ’suspicious behaviour’
She identified ’shopping
centre managers, store managers, people who were responsible for the security
in those areas’ as being key in the battle against terror.
‘We do know that in the past
terrorist plots considered the use of, for example, a dirty bomb, which is why
one of the elements of the strategy we are publishing today is to say that we
need to build on the work that we’ve been doing to prevent those sort of
materials getting into the country in the first place, tackling the way about
how information about how you can use them is provided,’ she said.
Speaking in a separate
interview on GMTV, she said detection and prevention measures needed to work in
tandem to combat the issue.
‘In the short term we want
to catch those people who are plotting to try and cause mass casualties,
‘But we also want to prevent
people turning to terrorism and becoming violent extremists in the first place.
That’s another important area of the strategy.’
Ms Smith said the threat of
an attack, ahead of the G20 summit of world leaders in London next month, had
been set at ’severe’.
‘which means a threat is
highly likely,’ she told the BBC.
‘It could happen without
warning.
‘better intelligence and
ways of tracking people, […] getting in early and preventing people turning to
violent extremism in the first place.’
By 2011, Britain will be
spending £3.5billion a year on counter-terrorism.
since 2003 […] the security
service MI5 has doubled in size
__________
But what happens
when fear wears off?
Click here.
Related:
Audio: In-depth analysis from Alan Watt
Live on RBN
MI5 Report: Everyone is a Potential Terrorist *
Independent: Anti-terror fight ‘will need privacy
sacrifice’
http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=842