Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the day suicide bombing came to Britain. On July 7, 2005 three young British-born men exploded their devices simultaneously on the London Underground. A fourth man detonated his an hour later on a bus in Tavistock Square. Together they left 52 people dead, many more injured, and a country only starting to realise that a problem it had long exported had found its way home.
Recently in Security Category
Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the day suicide bombing came to Britain. On July 7, 2005 three young British-born men exploded their devices simultaneously on the London Underground. A fourth man detonated his an hour later on a bus in Tavistock Square. Together they left 52 people dead, many more injured, and a country only starting to realise that a problem it had long exported had found its way home.
Lord Carlile delivered a sensible speech last night which again made the case for control orders, as well as an enhanced ability to deport foreign terror suspects. The Conservatives and Lib Dems have already been forced to issue control orders against al-Qaeda operatives Abid Nasser and Faraz Khan, despite being highly critical of them when out of government.
Revolution Muslim, a US-based extremist organisation, has issued death threats against Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the makers of animated sitcom 'South Park', after their latest episode which satirised the ongoing hysteria about depicting Mohammed. In what is yet another example of the ongoing influence Anwar al-Awlaki has on Western jihadism, the religious justification used by the group for killing Stone and Parker was taken from a 2008 Awlaki lecture 'The Dust Will Never Settle Down'.
John Brennan, the deputy national security adviser and top counterterrorism aide to President Obama, has come under increasing fire recently over the government's handling of Umar Abdulmutallab. Republican critics have complained that the Detroit bomber was read his Miranda rights too quickly, meaning vital intelligence could not be extracted from him, and called for him to be treated as an enemy combatant and therefore subejct to military tribunal.
Yesterday, Home Secretary Alan Johnson banned Islam4UK in what seemed a knee-jerk reaction to their planned march in Wootten Bassett. Although the ban has come late and was quite clearly done with the upcoming election in mind, it is still the right move.
Readers may remember that back in April, counter
terrorism officers arrested
12 students in the North West of England as part of Operation Pathway. The government has now released an update
about the arrests and subsequent detentions, which have caused much consternation
among some British Muslims, who (in some cases justifiably) saw the arrests as another
example of the increased suspicion and victimisation of Muslims in the UK.
In my last blog, I wrote about the decision to ban an
al-Qaeda supporter from a London local council. The government's
Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) have now released a
statement about this move.

