ARMY CHIEF SAYS TERROR GROUP ARE GREATER Isis are Brit jihadi’s call to blow up London’ a bigger threat to us than N Korea
A BRITISH jihadi in Syria is recruiting fanatics to mount bomb attacks in London.
Ex-Morrisons security guard Omar Hussain, 30, has urged followers to plan attacks like those that rocked the metro system in St Petersburg, Russia, this month.
Hussain gave bomb-making guidance to members of a group using the encrypted Telegram chat service. Then he posted a picture of a finished device, saying: “Looks like creme brulee.” The extremist fled High Wycombe, Bucks, in 2013 to wage “holy war”. He was recruited by Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria but switched to IS. In a disturbing video he urged David Cameron to send troops to fight IS, vowing: “We’ll send them back one by one in coffins.” In a post in January he urged his 88 followers to “strike them where it will cause the most fear among the powerful”. THE former head of our Armed Forces has pinpointed ISIS as posing more of a threat to Britain than sabre-rattling North Korea.
General Sir David Richards warned there was a “daily” danger of an attack by the Middle Eastbased Islamic terror group.
And he said the primary focus of international efforts must be to regain control of Syria and stamp out the ISIS menace.
The ex-military chief gave his overview of the deteriorating world situation as fears grow of a showdown between Kim Jong-un’s North Korea and the West.
He said: “We are some way short of being threatened by North Korea, but you could say we are being threatened daily by ISIS.”
Sir David, 65, served as Chief of the Defence Staff – the supreme boss of all the Services – between 2010 and 2013.
Before that he was Chief of the General Staff, the head of the British Army.
Failures
Now retired and a life peer, he said Britain should work with other countries to bring order back to war- torn Syria, where President Assad is suspected of using poison gas bombs.
He said: “Surely it is right to send a very clear signal to those who use chemical weapons that this will not be tolerated.
“But our broader involvement in an anti-Assad campaign is a different issue, especially given the chaos that could result.
“Conversely, surely it’s in all our interests to work with all nations to rid the world of the scourge of ISIS.
“Clearly the benchmark for British military involvement in Syria has to be high because of perceived failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“That should not mean we do not become involved – if it’s done properly – if our vital national interests are threatened.”
Britain is currently on “severe” threat of terror alert, meaning an attack is officially highly likely.
Security forces are permanently on guard against bomb plots or random attacks by home-grown fanatics like Khalid Masood, who killed five people including hero PC Keith Palmer in Westminster in an 82-second vehicle and knife rampage last month.
Meanwhile tiny communist North Korea is on a collision course with Donald Trump and the mighty machine of America, which has increased the number of troops ready to be deployed in neighbouring South Korea. In an interview earlier this week Pyongyang’s vice-foreign minister Han Song-ryol accused the US of becoming “more vicious and more aggressive” under Mr Trump.
Warning that the North Korean military was prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike he said: : “We will go to war if they choose.”e.”
Washington sources say dictatorctator Kim’s regime has around nd 30 nuclear warheads at present nt but is stepping up production and is likely to have as many as 60 within three years.
In a massive show of strength yesterday, North Korea displayed ballistic missiles while Kim looked on clapping and saluting.
Thousands of goose-stepping soldiers and row after row of armoured vehicles took