LONDON, March 24: Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has expressed serious concerns over the impact in Britain of the situation in Pakistan where Al Qaeda and groups affiliated to the Taliban are rapidly gaining influence in the federally administered tribal areas.

Briefing the media here on Tuesday, following the publication of the UK government’s updated counter-terrorism strategy, she said the strategy had noted that in some cases terror cells in the UK had received training and direction from Pakistan-based groups, and in many of the important attempted operations conspirators had travelled to and from Pakistan as part of preparations.

Counter-terrorism officials of the Home Office are to travel to Islamabad next week to discuss potential measures.

The updated strategy said that changing technology meant the prospect of a chemical or biological terrorist attack in Britain was now more realistic.

It also disclosed that serious preparations were under way in the UK for protection against the use of roadside bombs and other “novel home-made explosives” imported from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The document confirmed that the government intended to challenge radical views that “reject and undermine our shared values and jeopardise community cohesion” and it would do this by supporting groups and projects through the £70m-a-year Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) programme.

The home secretary said the government had no intention of outlawing such views or criminalising those who held them, but she added: “We will not hear these views in silence. We should all stand up for our shared values and not concede the floor to those who dismiss them.”

The document defined those who rejected “shared values” as scorning the institutions and values of parliamentary democracy, dismissing the rule of law, and promoting intolerance and discrimination on the basis of race, faith, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Ms Smith said those who publicly voiced homophobic views would be open to challenge.

The home secretary said the measures would ensure that local authorities understood the risk to community cohesion posed by some organisations.

Senior Whitehall officials were quoted by the Guardian on Tuesday as saying that the warning about the increased likelihood of a chemical or biological attack rested on changing technology, and increased theft and smuggling of such materials which made the aspirations of contemporary terrorist groups “more realistic than they have been in the past”.

The Home Office said it was also “working to ensure” that the lessons learned in Iraq about dealing with roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices were being reflected in domestic counter-terrorism work.
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