New terror alert: 4,000 trained militants in UK

There are around 4,000 Islamic extremists in the UK, who have attended terrorist training camps in Afghanistan or in border areas of Pakistan These extremists came back to Britain from these camps. The UK's security chiefs have revealed this.




The new evidence suggests that Afghanistan was the centre for Al Qaeda terrorist training between 1996 and the end of 2001. However, since then the focus has shifted to areas of Pakistan along the Afghan border.



Around four hundred thousand journeys take place between the UK and Pakistan each year. Most of the travel is done on legitimate grounds. It is not yet known, how many of these travellers go further into Afghanistan.



A senior security source has told The Telegraph, "There are 3,000 to 4,000 people who went from the UK to Afghanistan and came back. The important question is where are they now?"



The latest figure is more than double the estimate of 1,600 which MI5 gave a few months back about individuals actively involved in plotting terrorist attacks in the UK.



There is an assumption that the trained militants might have been employed by Al Qaeda in Iraq. However Britain's security agencies, MI5 and MI6 are working on the theory, that Al Qaeda sees its British Muslim recruits as too valuable to be used in Iraq. The agencies suspect that most extremists are ordered to return to their communities in Britain to establish autonomous terrorist 'sleeper cells'. The failed 'doctor's plot' attacks in London and Glasgow has raised the concerns over such sleeper cells.



The estimate is much higher for the total number of extremists who have received weapons training and religious instruction at Al Qaeda camps. This figure comes to about 20,000 to 70,000. However, intelligence agencies are in dark over the actual number of British residents among them.



Most of the terrorists who have been arrested in the UK in the past two-three years have been trained in either Afghanistan or the border of Pakistan. These include Dhiren Barot, now serving 30 years for plotting a 'dirty bomb' attack in Britain , was trained in either Afghanistan or Pakistan.