Author:
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 4, 2008
Introduction: The UK faces security threats
from British Muslim extremists returning from Afghanistan after fighting alongside
Taliban, a top British commander has said
The UK faces serious security threats from
British Muslim extremists returning from Afghanistan after fighting alongside
Taliban, a top British commander has said.
"There is a link between Kandahar and
urban conurbations in the UK," said Brig Ed Butler, who spent six months
commanding British forces in Afghanistan.
"There are British passport holders who
live in the UK being found in places like Kandahar," Brig Butler was
quoted as saying by a newspaper.
The British commander said he had seen evidence
that terror groups based in southern Afghanistan were plotting with Muslim
extremists in Britain to carry out attacks in the UK.
He suggested that traffic between Britain
and Afghanistan may flow in both directions, with some British Muslims returning
from the region and posing a domestic security threat. British Muslims are
part of the Taliban militia fighting against UK security forces in Afghanistan,
the top British commander said.
According to the report, a Whitehall source
confirmed that the UK security services are aware of some radicalized British
Muslims returning to the UK from Afghanistan.
"There are very small numbers of British
citizens travelling out there, being trained up and then returning to the
UK," the source said.
Western intelligence agencies have expressed
concerns that Afghanistan and its lawless border with Pakistan are housing
camps used by jihadi groups to train radicals from the western countries.
Earlier this year, Nigel Inkster, a former
deputy head of MI6, warned that Taliban groups over the border in Pakistan
have "despatched terrorists to a number of locations including Spain
and the United Kingdom", the report said. PTI
