Al-Qaeda tells British cells to carry out wave of beheadings 

ISLAMIC terror cells in Britain have been instructed to carry out a series of kidnappings and beheadings of the kind allegedly planned by the nine terrorist suspects arrested in Birmingham last week.

The “strategic” assassination instruction was issued by Al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan and Iraq to dozens of their followers in this country. It was uncovered by MI5 last autumn, senior security sources say.

As a result police are on standby for multiple attempts by terrorists to kidnap and then behead people across Britain. MI5 is conducting a counter-terrorism surveillance operation to prevent such an attack.

The alleged attempt to kidnap and behead a Muslim soldier or soldiers in Birmingham was just the first of a series of planned attacks, security sources say.

The revelation explains the recent deployment of a permanent SAS unit to London. The unit has been placed on 24-hour standby to respond to a terrorist attack in the capital. It would aim to carry out a hostage rescue mission within minutes of being alerted.  ...

***

MI5, police and SAS practise for a 'Beslan' siege 

The intelligence services fear that Britain could be subject to a Beslan-style siege, with multiple hostages forced to plead for their lives on camera.

Whitehall sources have said that the threat is considered so credible that MI5, the police and the SAS have conducted at least two mock counter-terrorism exercises to work out how to deal with such an eventuality.

The last exercise, shortly before Christmas, took place at an RAF base near Chester. Five police forces were involved in an operation that envisaged an international conference being stormed by terrorists, who then held a group of children hostage in a creche wired with explosives. ...

'This scenario is something that is very much on the radar screen,' said one counter-terrorism source. 'We have envisaged a British Beslan for several years.' Beslan in south-west Russia was the scene of a horrific siege when on 1 September, 2004, 1,200 schoolchildren and adults were taken hostage by Muslim terrorists. The siege resulted in the security services storming the school and the deaths of 344 of the hostages.

***

Muslim unrest as police carry out new raids

Police raided three more addresses in Birmingham yesterday as they continued to question nine men over their involvement in the alleged plot to kidnap and behead a serving British Muslim soldier.

No further arrests were made but West Midlands Police said that a "significant quantity of exhibits" taken from the 12 other properties were being examined following Wednesday's arrests.

Officers were granted an extension to hold the men until Feb 5 and said they began questioning the first of the suspects yesterday.

Searches of six of the premises had now ended, with roads being re-opened, and the other searches would end "in the next few days".

The continuing police presence is causing major unrest in the Muslim community, particularly at Alum Rock, scene of four raids.

Yesterday, Dr Mohammed Naseem, the chairman of Birmingham Central mosque and one of the city's most senior Muslims, said members of his faith were being persecuted by the Government and compared the current political climate to Nazi Germany.

Mr Naseem, who will address a public rally this afternoon, used Friday prayers to accuse Tony Blair of "persecuting" Muslims to justify counter-terrorist legislation.

He said: "They have invented this perception of a threat. To justify that, they have to maintain incidents to prove something is going on. There is dismay and people feel they are being persecuted unjustly.

All together now: "A-w-w-w"

***

Battlefield Shifts Westward 
Jules Crittenden

The war with extremist Islam has just entered a new phase. Times of London: Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and Iraq have issued orders for British cells to conduct a “low-tech” campaign of abductions and beheadings.

[...]

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, I was puzzled by the lack of follow-on. I asked the terrorism and security experts I was talking to at that time why al-Qaeda didn’t do the logical thing.  Activate the domestic cells for a series of synchronized low-intensity suicidal attacks with guns or bombs.  A dozen people killed by Islamic gunmen in each of a dozen US cities at the exactly same time on a Tuesday morning rush hour, or in the malls on a Saturday afternoon, would bring the United States to a screeching halt.  (And no, I’m not giving them ideas. This kind of thing is (A) obvious and (B) has been discussed quite a bit.)  We knew the cells existed.  Two al-Qaeda operatives picked up in Jordan had been Boston cabbies just a couple of years earlier.

The experts pointed out that no … quite rightly to date … al-Qaeda was fixated on dramatic large-scale attacks.  Planes falling out of the sky.  International landmarks exploding.  They don’t like the pennyante nature of small-scale attacks of a sort considered part of the normal fabric of life in their own neighborhoods.  Because the audience wasn’t us. The audience was the Islamic world.

Now, the audience is Europe’s Muslims,  ...

***

Kim Priestap has more here. Read the whole thing.