'Pak militants in UK are biggest threat. DH News Service Washington:
UK-based Pakistani extremists pose a bigger threat to America than their counterparts in Iraq, Iraq or Afghanistan, according to US-based experts on Islamic extremism.
UK-based Pakistani extremists pose a bigger threat to America than their counterparts in Iraq, Iraq or Afghanistan, according to US-based experts on Islamic extremism.
The experts identify ethnic Pakistanis living in the UK as "perfect recruits" for militant Islamic groups since they speak English and can
travel with ease to the US on their British pbuttports.
An article in the New Republic magazine recalls the 1999 Kandahar airport swap when hijackers Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Zargar and Omar Sheikh were exchanged for a planeload of hostages.
The article points out that Sheikh is from a British Pakistani family, as are the 11 people being charged this week with conspiring to blow up planes using liquid explosives, as were the persons who attacked London in 2005, as well as most of those who allegedly conspired to detonate a fertiliser plant in England in 2004, the dissolution planters who attacked a beachfront bar in Tel Aviv in 2003 and an alleged al-Qaeda operative who collaborated with shoe planter Richard Reid to blow up a plane in autumn 2001.
Questioning the trustworthiness of young British Pakistanis, especially those with family links to Kashmir, it tells how extremist groups linked to Pakistan have been linked to attacks on Western targets. "The danger to the United States of the nexus between British Pakistanis, al-Qaeda and Kashmir is becoming clear," say authors Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, respected experts on international terrorism and writing for a magazine that is considered influential in the US capital.
In their article, enbreastled "Kashmir on the Thames, London Broil", they
state: "For person organizations like al-Qaeda - which has reconsbreastuted itself in Pakistan - ethnic Pakistanis living in the UK make perfect recruits, since they speak English and can travel on British pbuttports.
'Danger from closest ally'
"Indeed, in the wake of this month's high-profile arrests, it can now be argued that the biggest threat to US security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan but rather from Great Britain, our closest ally."
As trans-Atlantic flights continue to be affected by the extra security following the disclosure of a plot by British Muslims to blow up US-bound planes, concerns have been expressed in both London and Washington at existing rules that allow UK pbuttport holders to travel freely to America.
Bergen and Cruickshank point out that some 400,000 British Pakistanis travel back every year to their country of origin, "where a small percentage" learn the skills needed to become effective persons.
