Britain to crack down on terrorists

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, DEC. 28. The British Government is ``determined'' to prevent foreign terrorist groups from using Britain as a safe haven for their activities, officials said today following reports that the ``suicide'' bomber, Bilal Ahmed, who blew himself up in Srinagar on Christmas day killing 10 persons was a British national. In media reports, he was identified as a Pakistani boy from Birmingham who left Britain in 1994 to get training as a militant in Pakistan.

Officials in the Home Office said the new Terrorism Act which would come into force in mid-February would plug loopholes that such groups had exploited in the past. The Act would give more powers to the Home Secretary and the police to crack down on extremists involved in fund raising and recruiting and training ``volunteers'' in the name of religious movements. Their assets could be seized and their activists jailed for conspiring to commit a terrorist act abroad.

Under the present laws, no action can be taken unless it is proved that they have broken the British laws. Fund raising and similar activities do not constitute a breach of the British laws.

In recent years, radical militant groups have proliferated here in the garb of religious and political campaigns and used Britain as a launching pad for exporting terrorism.

India and Sri Lanka have been particularly affected by their activities. ``We are determined to ensure that nobody is able to use the British soil to conspire against other countries,'' a Home Official said adding that he expected the new Act to make it a lot more difficult for extremist groups to carry on their activities.

There was, however, no official comment on the nationality of Bilal Ahmed with both the foreign office and the Home Office saying they had no knowledge.

An Indian diplomat said a report from New Delhi was awaited, and as soon as it was established who was behind the attack it would be brought to the notice of the British government. He was hopeful that the Terrorism Act 2000 would make it tougher for extremists to operate here and that ``extraditions will be applied more forcefully.''

The British newspapers said today that an organisation called Jaish-e-Mohammed had claimed responsibility for the Srinagar incident and praised Bilal Ahmed (one report called Mohammed Bilal) as a ``martyr''.

Jaish-e-Mohammed is said to have been founded by Maulana Masood Azhar who was released from an Indian jail last year after the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane. Bilal has been described as a 24-year-old former Birmingham college student - ``night-club going lad'' until his conversion to militancy - who operated under the name of Abdullah Bhai.

Muslim volunteers

DPA reports:

Meanwhile, the Times reported that many British Muslims are volunteering to fight for militant Islamic groups in international hotspots.

Hundreds of young militants were travelling abroad for training and then become involved in conflicts in Kashmir, Chechnya and Afghanistan, the newspaper said, adding that the British Government was coming under external pressure to crack down on militant groups.

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