UK's new breed of terrorists
By Richard Norton-Taylor in London
July 14, 2005

Britain's intelligence and security agencies are having to come to terms with something they had feared but hoped they would never have to face - the presence of suicide bombers in Britain.
It is the first time in western Europe that bombers have been prepared to commit suicide and completed the act.
In Madrid last year, the train bombs were set off by timers triggered by mobile phones. Some of the bombers were prepared to commit suicide, but only when they were cornered later by the Spanish police.
On Tuesday we learnt that, for the first time, four suicide bombers had carried out an attack in Britain, choosing the most vulnerable of targets.
Furthermore, the bomberswere British born and bred. Not only that, they could plot the attack without being detected, either by MI5 (the domestic security service) agents and informants or by the security and intelligence officials scanning emails and intercepting telephone calls looking for suspicious communications.
What concerns the security services is that the four bombers appear to have been "radicalised" in Britain, not indoctrinated in training camps and religious schools in the Middle East.
The Government has commissioned reports on the phenomenon. A senior MI5 officer is understood to have addressed a meeting of the Group of Eight home and interior ministers on the issue in Sheffield last month.
Security sources said on Tuesday that ministers would have to look again at radical clerics who can encourage extremism and influence young men disillusioned with Western culture.
It seems clear that MI5 needs to build up its network of agents, an anti-terrorist official said. It is already setting up regional offices in Britain. He compared the task facing MI5 to looking at a blank piece of paper. "The four bombers are in the middle. You then go out from there, look at their pasts, where they met, what they had done in the past, where they had travelled, who they associated with," he said.
That should help the security and intelligence agencies to build up a picture, not only of these four bombers, but the extent of the potential threat posed by other suicide bombers in Britain.
In a BBC interview after the security services and the police made their breakthrough, London's Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said it was likely there would be another attack, although he insisted it could be defeated. "Another attack is likely, there's no doubt about that. But when - who knows?" he said.
Since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US, senior British anti-terrorist officials have said there are probably fewer than 30 extremists prepared to commit a terrorist attack - and they meant plant a bomb, not blow themselves up with it.
� Cynthia Banham reports: The Prime Minister said the involvement of suicide bombers brought a new dimension to the attacks. "We shouldn't complacently imagine there aren't potential suicide bombers in this country. I believe the threat is less in Australia but we shouldn't be complacent about this," John Howard told ABC TV last night.
The Guardian
http://smh.com.au/news/world/uks-new-breed-of-terrorists/2005/07/13/1120934304323.html