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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 

"Sir" Ian Blair continues to scaremonger.



Does this man never know when to shut up?

The terrorist threat to the UK has intensified so much since July 7 that Scotland Yard gets high-grade intelligence on suspects almost every day, in contrast to the monthly reports it received before the London bombings, the UK's most senior police chief said yesterday.

Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, told a Metropolitan Police Authority conference on terrorism, where relatives of the July 7 victims were among hundreds of delegates, that cells were plotting further attacks.

"The level of threat has intensified and continues to intensify. The terrorists are here and they are going to go on attempting to kill people like you and people like me," he said. "The sky is dark. You may argue on the current legal position or British government's position, but we are in a different place than before the opening of this century.

"There are currently people in the UK as we speak who are planning mass atrocities and who will use suicide as a weapon. That's a different place to where we have been in my lifetime."

He said there had been a 75% increase in counter-terrorism operations by his officers since the July bombings. Three conspiracies had been thwarted since July 7, which had resulted in charges and deportations, he said, although he declined to comment further owing to ongoing court cases.

"Before July 7, my service and the security services believed themselves to be absolutely flat out against international terrorism," he said. "We are now further flat out than we could have ever imagined ourselves to be."

Referring to high-grade intelligence reports, Sir Ian said: "Andy Hayman [the Met's assistant commissioner in charge of anti-terrorism] would expect to get, before July, maybe one every month. Now, it's almost daily." The UK terrorist threat level has remained at "severe general" since late August and security chiefs believe that London is a prime target.


If Ian Blair is telling the truth, and judging by his inability not to and to misinform in the past, I wouldn't bet on it, then the reasons why the "threat" has increased are simple. The police are no longer taking any chances, and are pulling in anyone they even suspect of daring to search the internet for terrorist sympathisers websites, or even viewing beheading videos.

Other reasons include fighters either returning from Iraq or choosing to come here because of the UK's role in Iraq, trained and with further knowledge of how to plan jihadi attacks. As Tony Blair and many other government ministers do not dare to admit, the Iraq war has made us a huge target for all those who are violently opposed to the presence of the West in Iraq. Instead of countering this by withdrawing, or admitting to the mistakes made, they continue to make vacuous statements about not "cutting and running" while they are actually into the final stages of planning their escape, likely to begin next year. Instead of reacting to the July the 7th attacks proportionately, Blair ruined the consensus with the other parties with his "the rules of the game are changing" speech. With the tabloids baying for blood, he gave in and as a result was defeated by a parliament that finally found its dissenting voice. The result is that we are now back to the scaremongering of before the Iraq war, and "Sir" Ian Blair is more than happy to play the role of ramping up the fear factor. Like Bush, he gives details of attacks supposedly thwarted, then fails to give any evidence of these threats. The government then wonders why the public doesn't believe them when they call for more powers and awareness.

The sooner the government and the police realise that this cycle of idiocy is helping no one the better. Either keep us updated on what is happening, with some proper evidence or facts, or don't bother. The last thing we need is the constant scaremongering of a head of police who wasn't even informed that an innocent man was executed by his officers until the following day (if he was telling the truth, of course).

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best regards, nice info
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