Britain: `Over 4,000 terrorist suspects and their supporters active'

The British are starting to get a handle on what a major problem they have with home grown jihadis.

According to the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord Stevens and MI5, there are as many as '4,000 terror suspects and their supporters active in the UK' .

Police and MI5 were "still too underfunded and undermanned to cope with the task they face in the decades to come. And that's how long this will last," he said. The "infection", as he aptly referred to it, had spread out from "hot spots" such as Luton, the West Midlands and Finsbury Park in London.

Lord Stevens referred to the jihadis involved in the fertilizer bomb plot case which just finished this week as "ordinary and British"...which they were, except for a certain ummm - philosophical/religious outlook.

According to Lord Stevens, what he termed al-Qa'eda-linked extremists were already trying to infiltrate the police and the security services and that dozens had already been caught at it - although he didn't specify if the jihadis were arrested and deported or simply denied positions in Britain's security apparatus.

Lord Stevens also wants known terrorism suspects and what he termed "hate clerics", such as Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada, deported.

"Our human rights come first. Yet, incredibly, our so-called Human Rights laws, and our enviable history of religious tolerance, mean that foreigners preaching death and destruction to our way of life are allowed to stay here because their own countries won't tolerate such evil."

I'm not sure I'm totally in agreement with Lord Stevens there...a lot of their home countries, like Pakistan for instance are only too tolerant. Even encouraging in many cases, you might say.

In any event the Brits seem to be at least looking at the problem, which is a step in the right direction.

Hopefully we're doing the same, and quite a bit more on our side of the pond...