A crackdown on the Muslim communities in the United Kingdom would likely exacerbate perceptions that the West is engaged in a war against Islam and Muslims. This view is already quite prevalent among British Muslims, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to fuel anti-Western sentiments. The recent move to knight controversial novelist Salman Rushdie and the strong Muslim response to his knighthood also could play an important role in this regard.In this context, counterterrorism efforts will have less to do with blocking the physical means available to potential jihadists (though that will help somewhat) than with trying to bring about an intellectual defeat of jihadism -- "drying up the swamp" that produces jihadists in the first place. But this is where the British government will run into sticky issues related to freedom of expression, immigration laws and the relationship between the country's Muslim community and mainstream society.
Extremism does not necessarily lead to militancy, but given the size and the nature of the Muslim community that has not integrated into mainstream British life, and given the radical Islamist cross sections of British Muslim society, the probability of extremist elements becoming militant remains significant. Therefore, London faces the Herculean task of trying to convince mainstream Muslims to get their own house in order.
In what supposed to have been a "secret" 5 minutes ago ABCNews.com reported, that U.S. law enforcement officials received intelligence reports two weeks ago warning of terror attacks in Glasgow and Prague, the Czech Republic, against "airport infrastructure and aircraft." The warnings apparently never reached officials in Scotland, who said this weekend they had received "no advance intelligence" that Glasgow might be a target. Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff declined to comment specifically on on the report today, but said "everything that we get is shared virtually instantaneously with our counterparts in Britain and vice versa." Unlike the United States, officials in Germany have publicly warned that the country could face a major attack this summer, also comparing the situation to the pre-9/11 summer of 2001.
The alleged ringleader of the British bomb plot linked to the doctor arrested in Brisbane was a "sleeper" sent to Britain to await orders from Al-Qaeda, according to similar US reports.