London // Britain announced a series of new security measures on Monday amid growing concern about young Muslims being lured by extremist groups to fight in Iraq and Syria.
The UK prime minister David Cameron revealed plans to extend restrictions on travel, giving police temporary powers to seize passports on mere suspicion of an intent to join extremists involved in overseas conflicts.
Addressing the British parliament, he made clear the government was also alarmed at the threat potentially posed by those returning to the country.
He said the government would “work up” discretionary and selective means of preventing their re-entry.
Anxious to avoid placing Britain on a collision course with European human rights law, he promised “appropriate safeguards” in any legislation introduced by the government.
Observers have warned that rendering stateless a British citizen — as opposed to someone with immigrant status or dual nationality — would breach international obligations.
But Mr Cameron said it was “abhorrent” that British citizens had “declared their allegiance” to such groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. He described the group as a direct threat to every European nation.
In a further strengthening of existing precautions, airlines face being banned from landing on British soil if they fail to comply with new requirements on the provision of passenger lists and security screenings.
Mr Cameron said draft legislation would be prepared to counter any decision in the courts to weaken the government’s drive to improve security.
For individuals currently in Britain, the prime minister said the government proposed stronger restraints on movement through greater use of exclusion zones and relocation powers, under which the authorities have powers to decide where those under some suspicion should reside or stay away from.
His statement, on the resumption of parliament after the summer recess, followed last Friday’s decision to upgrade the perceived threat of terrorist action against the UK from “substantial” to “severe”. This translates as a warning that an attack on Britain is highly likely, though ministers and officials insisted there was no intelligence to suggest this was imminent.
It also reflects increasing fears about the part Britons are playing in the violence of ISIL and other militant groups.
In recent weeks, there has been a stream of bloodthirsty messages on social media from some of those already in conflict zones. Young recruits from Britain have tweeted openly about their involvement, or enthusiasm for becoming involved, in war crimes ranging from genocide of Christian and Yazidi minorities in northern Iraq to the rape and enslavement of women and the beheading of the United States journalist James Foley.
The UK government is aware of the part Britons are playing in the violence and threats of further violence, from planned massacres of kuffars — non-believers — to individual murders of hostages.
Interviews with national broadcasting media in recent days have deepened the perception that recruiters are making significant advances in their promotion of extremist causes.
At least 500 Britons are currently estimated by officials to be involved in the fighting in Syria and Iraq. Mr Cameron said these numbers were in addition to 700 French nationals, 400 Germans and hundreds more from other western countries thought to be fighting in Iraq and Syria.
With around 250 former combatants having returned to the UK, there is concern that battle-hardened volunteers may be tempted to import violence to British territory.
Whereas young people, horrified by the brutality of the Syrian president Bashar Al Assad’s attempts to defeat the rebels, might previously have been confused because world powers also sought his removal from power, few can now be in any doubt that the motives of such groups as ISIL are as anti-western as they are anti-Assad.
Mainstream Muslims have been quick to join the condemnation of those attracted to conflicts. Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper reported at the weekend that senior clerics had issued fatwas against Britons joining the militants.
But the recruiters, and some of the volunteers themselves, have provided skilled propagandists.
One man, Omar Hussain, 27, a former supermarket worker from High Wycombe, a town west of London, told the BBC he had become an ISIL fighter and spoke of a wish to carry out an attack in Britain. “I hate the UK,” he said, “The only reason I would intend to return to the UK is when I want to come and plant a bomb somewhere.”
He also claimed to know of the beheading of “three or four guys” in the Aleppo area of Syria and reportedly boasted to a friend of having witnessed the decapitation of Foley.
Another interview, perhaps more disturbing because the subject had not even left Britain when it was broadcast last Friday, showed a young Londoner, anonymous with his back to the camera, talking openly about joining ISIL or a similar group in what he described as a struggle to bring “peace and justice”.
At no stage was he challenged on how this statement could be reconciled with the savagery not only alleged to have been carried out but proudly proclaimed in videos and on social media.
foreign.desk@thenatioinal.ae
