THE BRITISH intelligence services are fearful of home-grown Islamic terrorists who pose a “unique” threat because they are ‘under the radar’ of intelligence officers, it has been claimed.
Documents released by WikiLeaks to the Daily Telegraph newspaper claimed that British-born “suicide operatives” could potentially launch a wave of terror attacks without MI6 being able to anticipate them.
The leaked documents, the Telegraph said, also highlight the worries of Washington who fear that cuts to the budgets of British intelligence services could hamper Britain’s ability to to combat Islamic terrorism within its sources.
The admission that Britain could be unprepared for such attacks was made to a group of visiting US Congressmen in April 2008, who met a senior officer from MI6 on their tour.
The senior officer, whose identity the Telegraph has not offered, said the British forces were “wholly or largely dependant” on help from the United States, most notably the CIA, to get details of terrorist activity on its shores.
If home-grown extremists – who could even be trained within the UK’s shores – were to “become suicide operatives, Her Majesty’s Government… would be hard pressed to find them on any ‘radar screen’,” the memo read.
The document is one of thousands leaked to the Daily Telegraph by WikiLeaks, which appears to have ended its exclusive UK arragement with the Guardian newspaper.
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