Ronald Noble, secretary general of the international police cooperation agency, said Britain needed to "catch up" and enact tougher checks. The comments came as the UK security minister warned of a battle of up to 15 years against al-Qaida-inspired terrorism, and as the investigation into attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow continued across three continents. Mr Noble, who was a leading law enforcement official in the US treasury department under Bill Clinton, told the Sunday Telegraph of his concerns. "We have the passport numbers, fingerprints and photos of more than 11,000 suspected terrorists on our database. But the UK does not check it against immigrants coming into the country or foreign nationals it has arrested," he said. "The guys detained last week could be wanted, arrested or convicted anywhere in the world and the UK would not know." Six out of the seven suspects held in Britain over the recent attempted car bombings and the attack on Glasgow airport are not British. It is not known whether they are on Interpol's database. Interpol said last night that the UK makes just 50 checks a month of the database; France by comparison makes 700,000 checks and Switzerland makes 300,000. Mr Noble said that Gordon Brown's promise last week to share a list of potential terrorists with other countries had yet to materialize. "British citizens might be surprised to find that this watch list announced by your prime minister last week has not been sent to Interpol," he said. "Why is it that some countries make sure passengers do not carry a bottle of spring water on to a plane, yet aren't careful to ensure convicted felons aren't entering their borders with stolen passports?"
A Home Office spokesman said last night that the Serious Organised Crime Agency did consult Interpol databases and added that the government was "committed" to better sharing of data with European countries. But the Interpol criticism was seized upon by the Conservatives, who said the government's intentions were being undermined by incompetence. "Yet again it is not the government's policy that is the problem - it is their lack of competence in delivering on that policy which is threatening our security," said shadow home secretary David Davis. Mr Brown used an interview yesterday to call for an international register of terrorists. "We do now need more information flowing internationally about who are potential terrorists and who are potential suspects," he told Sky News. "I want the system that we are trying to expand between Europe, a system whereby we know who are potential terrorist suspects, we expand that to other countries in the world and then we may have a better idea of people coming in to different countries - whether as professional recruits or in other ways - about what the dangers and the risks we face are." The security minister, Admiral Sir Alan West, said Britain's anti-terrorism message was failing to get across and the public might have to be "un-British" and inform on people they suspect. Admiral West told the Sunday Telegraph that Britain faced a long fight against terrorism: "I believe it will take 10 to 15 years." He said the UK was "not getting our message across properly", and added that he did not like the concentration on the "Muslim community". "I have a lot of Muslim friends and they see themselves as British. We've got to be very careful. The threat is to our British way of life and all of our British people," he said.
At the weekend, Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old doctor, appeared at City of Westminster magistrates' court charged with conspiring to cause explosions and was remanded in custody. A total of seven people remain in custody, one of whom is being held in Australia, and another suspect is seriously ill in hospital. The investigation into the London and Glasgow plots has seen the security and intelligence agencies stepping up their search for the international links of those responsible. As the Guardian reported last week, they believe that some of those behind the conspiracy had links with al-Qaida in Iraq. One of those arrested in connection with the plot is understood to have recently contacted members of the al-Qaida group in Iraq. A report by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, Jtac, warned in April that an al-Qaida commander in Iraq had talked about a big attack on Britain "ideally" before Tony Blair left office. Officials are also investigating possible links between Kafeel Ahmed, who remains critically ill after the failed attack on Glasgow airport, and Abbas Boutrab from Algeria, convicted two years ago by a Diplock court in Belfast for downloading information from the internet on how to blow up airliners. Mr Ahmed was studying at Belfast's Queen's University between 2001 and 2004. Security sources confirmed yesterday that the two men were in Northern Ireland at the same time. But one source described Boutrab as "a bit of a loner". Mr Ahmed suffered 90% burns after the Jeep he is believed to have been driving slammed into Glasgow airport in what counter-terrorism officials believe was an attempted suicide car bombing. Indian police yesterday raided properties where Mr Ahmed and his doctor brother Sabeel, who is also a suspect, had stayed in Bangalore. They said they had recovered CDs about the conflicts in Chechnya and Iraq.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2121808,00.html
JPTF 2007/07/09
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