Returning jihadis ‘could be offered council house bribe to reject terror’

MUSLIM fanatics returning from the Middle East could be offered ‘bribes’ including council homes and counselling in exchange for living peaceably in this country, it was claimed yesterday.

The Government is also said to be planning to offer job advice to jihadis coming back to the UK as part of a secret deradicalisation strategy called Operation Constrain.

Official documents reportedly state that up to 20,000 extremists on MI5’s radar could be offered the incentives in a nationwide effort to counter domestic terror plots.

The offers are said to include being put to the top of housing waiting lists, the provision of benefits, offers of training or education and even jobs with charities or public bodies, according to The Mail on Sunday which said it had seen the documents. Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘This sounds like a reward for being on a list of potential terrorists. You can’t buy people’s loyalty to this country.’

And terrorism expert Professor Anthony Glees, of Buckingham University, told the newspaper: ‘You can’t bribe people not to be terrorists.’

In contrast to Prevent, the Government’s current deradicalisation programme, the new scheme is said to involve police or social workers approaching extremists and working out how to prevent them offending.

A Whitehall source said: ‘We are planning a number of pilots to explore the best way to diverting such people from terrorism and extremist activity.’ There has been a continuing debate about how to treat the 850 British Muslim fanatics returning from Islamic State’s crumbling caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Earlier this month Rory Stewart, an international development minister, said that British citizens who had travelled to join the terror group were a ‘serious danger’ to this country and could expect to be killed.

But the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Max Hill QC, has said ‘brainwashed’ young people who went to Syria ‘with a sense of naivety’ might be spared prosecution and allowed to return.

The Home Office said: ‘We are reviewing our counter-terrorism strategy to make sure we respond to the evolving threat in the most effective way we can.’