Special intelligence units are being planned across Britain to monitor Muslims so the authorities can collect "community by community" knowledge of where extremism is building up.
The Guardian has learned that the special squads, to be known as Muslim Contact Units and staffed by Special Branch officers, will be established in areas including Yorkshire, northwest England and parts of the Midlands.
After the London bombings police admit their intelligence of what goes on in Muslim communities is "low," and urgently needs to be boosted.
The police and Home Office say that a Muslim Contact Unit operating in London has already helped thwart extremist attempts to recruit young British Muslims to violent jihad, by working with Islamic communities.
The establishment of the special units is one of the first concrete counter-terrorist measure to emerge after the London bombings.
On Tuesday British Prime Minister Tony Blair met moderate British Muslim leaders and agreed on a taskforce to produce measures to tackle extremism.
The Special Branch units will have language skills and seek detailed knowledge of the dynamic of Islamic communities in their areas. They will fulfil two roles, helping protect Muslim communities from Islamophobic abuse and attacks, while also gathering intelligence on extremist activity.
Any leads on extremists can be passed to the security services or acted upon by police.
A senior police officer with knowledge of the scheme told the Guardian: "Deep knowledge of Muslim communities is rare in the service. If you are going to understand who is extreme and who is dangerous, which are different [concepts], you have to understand the community.
"Unless you know the subject well and what they are saying, often in Arabic or Urdu, and what the context is, you are not going to get a feel for it," the source said.
The source stressed that the squads would be open about their work.
"It is not about spying."
Contact Units are expected to get final approval and funding soon from ministers. The scheme applies principles of community policing, learned by forces since the 1980s, to the field of counterterrorism.
"It's about policing, it's not just about being nice to communities. You protect them against Islamophobia, and work with Muslims to protect them against extremists," the senior police source said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image