British men convicted on terrorism charges

Updated February 22, 2013 19:00:00

In the UK, three British born and raised men have been convicted on terrorism charges after police and the security agency MI5 intervened to stop what they say was a plot to kill as many people as possible.

Source: PM | Duration: 4min 10sec

Topics: terrorism, courts-and-trials, united-kingdom



The jury was told the men, who are all from Birmingham, had planned to become suicide bombers and that two of them had trained with Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Professor Michael Clarke from the Royal United Services Institute told Europe correspondent, Philip Williams, the more serious threat actually comes from motivated individuals rather than groups.

MICHAEL CLARKE: Statistically, since 2006, there have been a lot more attempts at lone wolf terrorism than this sort of cell. It's a bit out of time, now, in a sense. What we're now seeing is the individual, who usually has gone to Yemen, as opposed to Pakistan, for training or maybe Somalia, and with very little real trade craft, is nevertheless trying to do something.

And of course what they're trying to do is usually pretty amateur but if enough of them try to do it, one or two will hit lucky.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: Now we hear that particularly British men are being attracted to Syria to fight the jihadist fight there. What long term effect will that have?

MICHAEL CLARKE: What the security services worry about is that Syria is the glamorous place to go to and we're not talking about hundreds of Brits here. We're talking about a few handfuls. But nevertheless, a few handfuls of people, if they survive, will come back in 18 months or two years' time or whenever, and when they come back they will have some hard-edged experience, they'll have motivation, they'll be surrounded by glamour among their friends and they'll probably be in a position to motivate other people. That's the danger.

Now that won't happen immediately, but it will happen sometime next year or the year after.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: There hasn't been a major incident since 7/7. Is that good luck or is that good management on the part of the authorities?

MICHAEL CLARKE: I think the British security authorities have both been effective but also lucky. They've been effective because they've foiled well over 20 serious plots, but they've also been lucky because at least four of those plots, other than 7/7, would have worked if the bomb makers had made their bombs properly.

So, you know, we've had a few plots that simply didn't work because the explosives didn't go off. So there would have been eight or nine bombs in Britain, maybe by some counts 12, in addition to 7/7, if we had not been lucky.

So the security services have got to continue to be effective and lucky into the future.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: The British government has put a lot of effort into changing the susceptibility of those young men, especially, coming through. Has that worked?

MICHAEL CLARKE: Yeah there's a lot of work gone on in counter-radicalisation. I think most of us in the analysis community think well they've done the best they can. But actually the results are patchy. They really are patchy.

They seem to have worked in one or two areas, and in a way it's not what the government does that's most important, it's what the rest of society does, it's what their own communities do - the Somali community, the Pakistani community.

And some of the best counter-terrorists in Britain are the comedians. It is, it's de-glamourising these people. It's when the alternative comedians do a set on the ridiculous nature of jihadism. It's not what these people do that is their vulnerability, it's what they want.

You talk to everybody, you say what do these people want to create, what sort of Britain would they like? And we just laugh at them. And so humour is the best counter-radicalisation technique that I know of.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: That's an extraordinary claim, in a way, isn't it? That, I mean, are you saying that all the efforts of MI5, MI6, don't stack to a good Muslim comedian?

MICHAEL CLARKE: I think it's reasonable to say that the government needs to be seen to do things and some of its action sets the tone of what happens. But if you're looking at where the real roots of radicalisation lie in the youth members of certain immigrant communities in Britain, then the best way into those communities is not through government or official agencies, it is through their own ethnically based comedians and there are more and more of them around and for my money, they are more effective than quite a lot of initiatives that any government can take.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: In effect, what Alf Garnett did for racism back in the 60s and 70s?

MICHAEL CLARKE: I think that's absolutely right.

TIM PALMER: Professor Michael Clarke from the Royal United Services Institute speaking to Europe correspondent Philip Williams.