Why this MUST be a turning point in our war on terror

Atrocities by islamist terrorists hell-bent on slaughtering innocents are becoming a depressingly frequent part of life in the United Kingdom.

With each new act of butchery comes a fresh wave of revulsion — along with a deep sense of foreboding that worse inevitably lurks around the corner and a steely British resolve to carry on as normal, to not let the terrorists deprive us of our liberties.

But after the appalling suicide bombing in Manchester on Monday, something feels very different. the British people have come together in an extraordinary outpouring of shock and rage — sickened to their stomachs at the images of angelic young girls whose bodies were torn apart in a hail of nuts, bolts and nails triggered by a jihadist.

it will come as little surprise to many to hear reports that the suspect, salman Abedi, may have been known to our security forces as an individual who posed such a threat.

What happened in Manchester is not something that can be tolerated with a weary shrug that there’s little we can do to combat such hatred. We cannot and must not accept that there are jihadists in Britain who are allowed to walk free until they decide the time is right for them to stab, shoot and bomb.

Amid the grief yesterday, a powerful sense was growing that enough is enough, that concrete measures must be taken — and quickly — to end our passivity in the face of carnage.

in short, the Manchester suicide bombing should mark an irrevocable turning point in the fight against this intolerable threat to our freedoms and way of life.

Neither we, nor our politicians, should be under any illusions when it comes to the terrifying challenge posed by islamists here. in Britain, there are thought to be more than 3,000 would-be jihadis — at least 400 of them battlehardened from fighting in syria — who have a worryingly free rein to act against us whenever and wherever they choose.

As this newspaper recently revealed, one of them, having returned from fighting in syria, is living freely and working for a fastfood delivery company. Another man, despite links to a jihadi faction that encouraged other so-called ‘Lions’ in the UK to take up arms in the Middle east, is alleged to have returned from the syrian battlefield and was discovered to have taken a job working as a parking attendant at a hospital in London.

Why were they even let back into the country if their overriding desire was to kill everyone they deemed to be infidels?

the problem for our security forces, as they try to clamp down on the jihadist menace, is that their hands are tied by domestic legislation, and by conventions imposed on us by the european court of human rights. Whenever efforts have been made to bring in antiterrorism measures, they have been stymied by spineless politicians, judges or european directives.

No one knows this better from bitter personal experience than former home secretary David Blunkett, who fought an ultimately fruitless battle to rid our streets of islamist terrorists.

After the september 11 attacks in 2001, he was unable to remove terror suspects from Britain to their homelands, or find another nation prepared to take them.

so he started jailing them in a bid to protect the public while maintaining what was determined to be fair judicial process. But after he left the home office, the Law Lords struck down the legislation he had introduced.

the sobering reality remains that it takes more than 20 highly trained members of the security forces to keep just one suspect under constant surveillance. that is clearly too labour intensive, as well as prohibitively expensive.

Are there, though, other options the next government should be considering? some should be ruled out. For example, mass internment of those suspected of being jihadis in our midst would — as was the case with terror suspects during the troubles in ireland — be a breeding ground for more terrorists, lead to outrage in their own religious communities and so spark even greater divisions in society.

however, we have a sex offenders register that for the most part does the job it was designed to do, which is to monitor the activities and locations of those the state wants to keep tabs on.

Why should we not go one step further and electronically tag islamist terror suspects so we always know where they are? they should also, like sex offenders, be banned from using the internet.

After Britain leaves the eU, a carefully crafted new Bill of rights should be introduced that — as Mr Blunkett wanted — safeguards the civil liberties of the majority, while restricting those of the small number of individuals determined to kill and maim us.

even as things stand, Mi5 has prevented countless terrorist plots in recent years. Now, it must be given all resources necessary to combat this growing threat.

it certainly needs to be able to listen to our phone calls and have access to our emails. i really do not mind the authorities reading mine if it will help to stop another Manchester atrocity from happening. And i doubt many people reading this would care either.

FiNALLy, we must find a way to build relationships with increasingly ghettoised and suspicious Muslim communities. the key, of course, is to emphasise above all else the difference between ordinary, law-abiding Muslims and islamist terrorists; between legitimate criticism of British foreign policy when it comes to the Middle east, and a call to murder innocent British children.

My own experience tells me that such an approach has every possibility of success. Fluent in Arabic, i have spent most of my adult life living alongside ordinary Muslims in the working-class districts of cities as diverse as tangiers, tunis, cairo and Damascus.

As a non-Muslim, i have fasted with Muslim families during ramadan and celebrated islamic holidays at parties organised for their children. But while none of them had anything but contempt for Western military intervention in the region, i can honestly say that none ever expressed anything but horror at the actions of Al-Qaeda and islamic state.

in the same way, i hope that the vast majority of Muslims in Britain will be appalled by what happened in Manchester this week.

the challenge for the security services is to find a way to stop such a tragedy happening again without causing a massive schism between communities that are already too mistrustful of each other.