Hundreds of jihadis could be on way back to UK warns Yard chief
BRITAIN’S most senior policeman warned yesterday that battlefield defeats for militants in Iraq and Syria could lead to hundreds of British extremists returning to the UK. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said officers are preparing for an influx of hardened fighters returning and posing a potential threat in their homeland.
The stark warning came as fighters of the Islamic State suffered their first setbacks in Iraq after US airstrikes coordinated by intelligence gathered in northern Iraq by British and American Special Forces pinpointed their positions close to the Kurdish town of Irbil.
Between 500 and 1,000 Britons – half from London – are believed to have travelled to Syria to fight alongside militants and then moved with Islamic State forces on their lightning and horrifically brutal offensive across northern Iraq.
Britons in both Syria and Iraq have been posting a gruesome catalogue of pictures and tweets, some showing fighters holding severed heads, others corpses and decapitated bodies.
Sir Bernard said there are ‘a signifi-
‘The biggest challenge’
cant number of people who run the risk of being radicalised, militarised and potentially desensitised to violence, who one day we assume will come home’.
He added: ‘The biggest concern certainly I have is that none of us know which way those wars are going to go. We’ve seen some quite radical movements across whole countries. Look at Iraq, the shift in a few days. These world events were moving at pace.
‘That was obviously Islamists who were progressing positively. If there were to be a reverse of that at pace, and they were to lose, there is a risk that hundreds of people would want to come home. That’s the biggest challenge.
‘We can’t predict when it might happen. Should there be large numbers returning it puts great pressure on all of us to make sure that we are kept safe. While they are there they are not an immediate threat, but should they come back, and should they come back together, that’s a concern.
‘We are trying our best to prepare for that. No one should underestimate the task.’
With the support of US air power, Kurdish forces are expected to mount attacks in the coming months against Islamic State militants that could lead to foreign fighters returning home. The monitoring of communications used by fighters in Iraq has provided evidence that young Britons are among jihadi forces near the Sinjar mountains where refugees have been trapped.
Intelligence reports indicate that Islamic State militants who had been besieging the mountain were scattered by US airstrikes and are regrouping for a new offensive near the Iraqi town of Qara Tappa, 73 miles north of Baghdad, i n an apparent bid to broaden their front with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.
Disturbingly, evidence was also uncovered showing Islamic State has been using tunnels built by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s to secretly move fighters and weapons from strongholds in western Iraq to towns south of Baghdad in preparation for an attack on the Iraqi capital.
A 40-strong team of SAS men supported by other Special Forces will remain in Iraq for several weeks providing intelligence and training ahead of an operation – backed by US air power – to drive back militants.