70 JIHADIS LET OUT OF JAIL
EXCLUSIVE: New terror threat
UP to 70 al-Qaeda terrorists in British jails are about to be freed.
Security chiefs fear the hardened extremists will join a growing pool of “lone wolves” like Westminster butcher Khalid Masood.
The 70 convicts were all
jailed between 2004-6 and are due for release.
Security chiefs fear they could join around 400 battle-trained British jihadis who have returned from Syria and Iraq after fighting for Islamic State.
Jailed fanatics returning to the same friends and families as war-hardened IS jihadists would create an unholy alliance of terror on Britain’s streets.
Former Labour Cabinet minister Liam Byrne said: “Put all this together and it’s the perfect storm.”
“IS used to urge people to go to the Middle East to build its sick Utopia.
“Now it is inciting lone wolf attacks, specifying weapons and targets.”
Those messages are being delivered through social media and the IS glossy magazine Rumiyah. The October 2016 issue gave instructions for the best length of knives for killing and the most vulnerable parts of the body. One of the four people killed by Masood, PC Keith Palmer, 48, was first knifed under his arm where his stab vest did not protect him. Masood, 52, then went for his neck.
Masood was not on MI5’s list of 3,000 jihadist suspects. Although he had popped up on their radar a Whitehall source said: “There was no intelligence to justify an investigation.”
He may have been a lone wolf but in spy jargon he was never a “known wolf.”
Masood’s murderous rampage highlights the growing problem of criminals being radicalised in prison, according to a community leader.
Mohammed Khaliel, director of Islamix, said authorities need to tackle the rise in the number of inmates coming out who are possibly ready to commit lone wolf atrocities.
He said: “It’s well known that some converts are more likely to misunderstand their new religion and then be used by evil forces to carry out atrocities. .