The Security Service (MI5) and the police are aware of dozens of plots to kill people and damage the British economy.
Some 200 networks and over 1,600 individuals under investigation. So said Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the Director General of the Security Service, in a speech at Queen Mary College, London on November 9. She warned of the continuing threat of terrorism and described how the Security Service and others were combating it.
Campus extremism
Among early reaction to the speech was Prof Anthony Glees, of Brunel University, who suggested that reading between the lines the DG was warning of campus extremism – recruitment of students, even school-age children, to become, possibly, suicide bombers. Prof Glees is author of When Students Turn to Terror: Terrorist and Extremist Activity on British Campuses, featured in our February 2006 issue.
She was addressing an invited audience of academics, students and journalists as a guest of Professor Peter Hennessy, Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History on behalf of the Mile End Group. The Group is an arm of the Mile End Institute for the Study of British Government, Intelligence and Society.
For the speech in full, and a photo of the DG, visit the MI5 website: