Britain must show it is serious about combating te

TO JUDGE from some of the reaction to Thursday's conviction of three would-be Islamist terrorists from Birmingham, it's all a bit of a joke. Focusing on their failure to agree on a specific target, their indecision about who else to recruit and their plan to use sports drinks to help construct their bombs some have compared the plotters to the hapless idiots in Chris Morris's comedy about British Islamist terrorists, Four Lions.

Ashik Ali and Irfan Khalid were found guilty of plotting a campaign of bombings'

Some joke. If Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, had not been intercepted by the security services, no one would be laughing now. We would be mourning even more victims of terror.

Make no mistake. These men are no figures of fun. They are symbols of the Islamist threat to Western civilisation which remains potent and which is as able as ever to lure young Muslims into becoming terrorists.

It must be said at the outset that it is not Muslims as such who threaten us. Most Muslims are peace-loving and law-abiding people who hold those who plot terror in contempt. But some pervert the religion they claim to uphold, just as the IRA perverted Catholicism.

But important as it is to remember that, it is critical that we do not bury our heads in the sand and pretend that the threat does not exist.

BECAUSE what is so particularly worrying about these latest convictions is that the men who were planning to murder as many of us as they could were not only unknown to the intelligence services - they operated for most of their plot off the radar - but were able with some ease to be trained in terror and to coordinate their activities with Al Qaeda.

Western governments like to say how enfeebled Al Qaeda now is, with Osama Bin Laden dead and other key figures either killed or taken prisoner. It is certainly true that the Al Qaeda of today is a different beast to that of 2001.

But it shifts its shape, changes its modus operandi and regroups. Look at Mali. Look at Nigeria. Look at the hostage crisis last month in Algeria.

And look, of special concern to us, at how it still sells its message of murder to young Muslims in the UK.

What marks this latest plot out is that these terrorists were self-motivated. They sought out lessons in terror from Al Qaeda, watched videos and went to Muslimstan to train. They got on with it themselves.

Terrifyingly, we must now confront the realisation that there are growing numbers of Islamist fanatics who are motivated by the desire to kill as many of their fellow Brits as possible and who can call on Al Qaeda's expertise to help them achieve that aim.

The security services are said to have been "shocked" at the ease with which the men could contact Al Qaeda's international wing in northern Muslimstan and at our initial failure to have a clue about any of this.

Indeed the security services now have a name for such people - . They call the - "Nike terrorists" because of the sports brand's motto: "Just do it."

One important lesson to be drawn might seem at first unconnected. The use of drones in Muslimstan is controversial. These unmanned flying machines are said by some to make things worse because they antagonise the population by striking fear into them.

But think about this. The terrorists were inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, the English-speaking Al Qaeda preacher. He was killed by a missile from a drone in Yemen - 12 days after the terrorists were arrested.

And in some of the conversations recorded by the security services the men also referred to their backing from Khalid al-Kuwaiti, the Al Qaeda fifth in command. He was also killed in a drone attack in December.

So we have to ask ourselves: are we serious or not about stopping terror? And if we are, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that drones are a vital part of that fight.

But there are issues here which we must also confront. Urgently. The Government's so-called Prevent strategy depends on law-abiding Muslim communities reporting suspicious behaviour to the authorities. But although it has some success, this case shows it has severe limitations. Relatives and neighbours knew the plotters travelled abroad to train. Not one came forward.

Irfan Naseer was also found guilty

IT MUST be devastating for the majority of the Muslim population to be tarred with the brush of terror when they simply want to get on with their lives as law-abiding British citizens. But it is no good turning a blind eye to suspicious activity and still expecting not to be associated with it. The Muslim community has to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

One area where this is particularly worrying is the use of charities, which raise funds for supposedly peaceful ends but are in reality funding terror.

One charity was mentioned in this case because the men posed as fundraisers for it to help finance their plot. There is no evidence that this charity had any idea what was going on. But there are charities which are implicated and are banned in other countries.

Yet in Britain we allow them to operate. Until we get to grips with this crucial part of the terrorists' support network we are doomed to failure.

Thank God no one died because the plotters were caught in time. But as the old saying goes: we have to be lucky every time, they have to be lucky only once. This needs to be a wake-up call -- A wake up call with a BOMB sounding the alarm if Britain's security isn't beefed up and soon!! ...
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