Face up to your problem, Muslims told
Annabel Crabb in London and agencies
August 14, 2006
LONDON'S most influential former police chief has rounded on Britain's Muslims, blaming them for the terrorist networks in the country.
"When will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is their problem?" wrote John Stevens, former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in a Sunday newspaper.
In an inflammatory opinion column, he called on Muslims to "stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else's problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims".
Lord Stevens, whose continuing responsibilities in Britain include the inquiry into Princess Diana's death, also defended "racial profiling" at airports and other security hotspots, saying resources were being wasted on searching everybody out of a sense of fairness or delicacy.
"I'm a white, 62-year-old, suit-wearing ex-cop - I fly often, but do I really fit the profile of a suicide bomber?" Lord Stevens, who was commissioner of the Metropolitan Police until last year, wrote in the News of the World.
His comments clash noticeably with a speech delivered last week - before the terrorist arrests - by the Assistant Police Commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur, who said racial profiling methods had "discriminated" against the Muslim community and added to racial tensions in Britain.
Lord Stevens's intervention is also certain to increase fears among the leaders of Britain's Muslims, a group of whom wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on Saturday imploring him to reduce tensions by altering his political stance on the Middle East.
"Of course, there'll be instant squealings that this is racism. It's not," Lord Stevens insisted.
"It's exactly the same as recognising that, during the Northern Ireland troubles that left thousands dead, the IRA were totally based in the Catholic community and the UVF in the Protestant."
Other reports yesterday, meanwhile, said Britain's "leader" of al-Qaeda had been captured in last week's raids. The unnamed man, who was one of the 24 people seized under anti-terrorism laws last Thursday, was described by The Sunday Times as "suspected not only of masterminding the foiled plot to bring down up to nine trans-Atlantic airliners, but also of involvement in other planned atrocities over the past few years".
Pakistani police allege that Rashid Rauf, a 26-year-old who they arrested last week, was acting as an agent there for the British-based terrorist network, organising cash support and training participants in the plan to blow up aircraft flying to the US in mid-air.
British intelligence and security agencies have been loath to claim a direct al-Qaeda involvement, although the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, readily expressed an opinion on the day of the arrests last week that the alleged plot bore the terrorist group's "hallmarks".
The Daily Telegraph in London reported that five of the suspects had learned bomb-making techniques in al-Qaeda training camps in Pakistan, and that they had recorded "martyrdom videos", which were to be released by al-Qaeda in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
Pakistani officials quoted by the newspaper said some of the suspects visited the region at the same time as the London bombers Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer.
The US President, George Bush, in a scheduled address on Saturday told the American people that proponents of the foiled bombing plot shared a "totalitarian ideology" with Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Twenty-two suspects - chiefly young, British-born men of Pakistani descent - are still being questioned in British police stations. One has been released without charge, while the 24th is due for a hearing on Monday to decide whether police can continue their questioning.
As security precautions continued to cause hold-ups at London's Heathrow Airport, British Airways and the low-cost operator Ryanair said airport authorities were failing to cope with the crisis.
The chief executive of British Airways, Willie Walsh, said the airline had cancelled a quarter of its short-distance flights, and some planes had been taking off half-empty because passengers were being held up in queues for security searches.
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Glad to see that someone is willing to put political correctness aside and identify the current wave of terrorism as a Muslim problem |
