Through much background reading of history, current affairs and and politics I’m one of those who would normally put a lot of trust in the work of Britain’s Security Service MI5 mostly because of the work they do in helping to curtail terrorist threats to the United Kingdom. In fact I’m of the opinion that those with suspicions about Islamic terrorism should inform both the police and the boys and girls of Thames House about their suspicions. This is because there might be the possibility that due to political correctness reasons, some police forces might be less than active about following up Islamic terrorist suspicions that might be brought to them and reporting these suspicions direct to Thames House might get the matter looked into earlier.
However, according to a report published today by Sky News, it seems that MI5 may well have cocked up over the issue of the Blackburn bearded savage who carried out the hostage outrage at a Synagogue in Texas USA. It appears, according to sources that Sky News claims to have, that the jihadist in question, Malik Faisal Akram, had been ‘on the radar’ of the Security Service. An initial investigation termed a ‘short lead investigation’ had determined that he was not at that point a threat to national security although it is quite possible that a more detailed later investigation of Akram might have been opened. The short lead investigation was opened due to concerns that had been raised, by whom we do not know, that Akram was involved in Islamic extremism.
Sky News said:
The British man who was shot dead after taking four people hostage at a synagogue in Texas had been on the radar of MI5, Sky News understands.
The Security Service began looking into Malik Faisal Akram, 44, in the second half of 2020 to assess whether he posed a security threat, a Whitehall source said.
The suspicion that had been raised about him was related to Islamist terrorism.
Some 3,000 to 4,000 individuals are active subjects of interest for the Security Service.
The so-called “short-lead investigation” into Akram, however, concluded that there was no “credible threat to national security at that time”, the source said.
It meant that no longer term investigation or further monitoring of Akram, who was from Blackburn in Lancashire, was carried out.
“He never reached the threshold” to justify further investigation, the source said.
The source declined to say how long Akram had been looked into other than to say that the investigation had lasted more than four weeks and either concluded in the back half of 2020 or by early 2021.
After the investigation concluded that Akram did not pose a threat at that time, he would have joined the ranks of some 40,000 individuals who have at some point been a subject of interest of MI5.
A “short lead investigation” is a term given for a form of investigative process by MI5 into an individual that comes before a longer term, covert investigation.
It certainly appears to be the case that Akram was a danger due to his involvement in Islamic extremism. It also certainly looks as if the decision to classify Akram as not a threat was a mistake. It’s quite possible that investigators looked at Akram and his associates and decided that Akram was just another Islamic gobshite of which the UK sadly has a great many and downgraded the threat that Akram posed. It may well be the case that by making the decision to classify Akram as not being a terrorist threat helped Akram obtain the necessary visa to enter the United States or make use of the US visa waiver system that applies for British subjects.
Without a shadow of a doubt this decision to downgrade the threat that Akram posed was a bad mistake by the Security Service. However it is a quite understandable mistake bearing in mind that the Security Service has an awful lot of Islamic nutjobs to keep an eye on and to monitor to see if they are becoming more radicalised. Akram was among at least 40,000 mostly Islamic extremists that the Security Service has had to take an interest in. It is inconceivable that at some point one or more of these Islamic nutjobs would slip through the net.
The Security Service is in a pretty invidious position regarding Islamic extremists and terrorists. They have to be right every time when it comes to their investigations of these characters whilst the Islamic terrorists only have to be right once.
Just did the mathematics, we aren’t supposed to worry about 40k Islamic nutjobs out of a alleged total of 3m adherents of the RoP…or 0.013%? Because that would be “Phobic”?
Yet we do have to bow down to “women” with a Cressida, who make up an even smaller % of the total population, because that is also “Phobic”?
Got us coming and going…
I don’t believe that it is at all ‘phobic’ to go after Islamic extremists. I believe it was Dr Rakib Eshan of the Henry Jackson Society who has looked into attitudes in Muslim communities to terrorists and has found that at least 60% of British Muslims are concerned about Islamic extremism. That large number of Muslims who are concerned about the nutjobs looks to me like distinct permission for the govt and security forces to go after Islamic extremists.
@ Ryan:
your maths is a trifle off: 40K orthodox and Jihadist Muslims is 100 x (40000/3000000)% = 1.3%.
And that’s just the ones that are “known to the authorities”.
p.s. I like your phrase “women with a cressida”, may I borrow it?
@F211:
In one sense MI5 clearly did “cock-up” over Akram. But equally they have to prioritise whom they put under covert surveillance (it’s a VERY expensive process) and it may well be that Akram did not show “Jihadist” tendencies even though he was an orthodox Muslim, he could easily have been a “quietist” at the time.
Let’s remember that MI5 etc. have to either get it right or get lucky every time, the Jihadists have to get lucky just once to carry out an atrocity and it is immensely difficult to protect a population from an active “fifth column” within it and especially so in a liberal society where there is something more than a lip-service belief in human rights.
It’s rather ironic, when you think about it: when the Jihadists “get lucky” they kill and maim people in large numbers, when society “gets lucky” it is as the result of spending £millions on security, thus draining resources that could be used to do many other (note I do not say better) things, so even the unsuccessful Jihadist drains resources from the Country in prevention of his attack and if captured alive continues to do so whilst his case is exhaustively investigated and the “authorities” fail to identify his motive and continues to do so whilst he is in prison.
At least in this case the Jihadist won’t be a drain on the public purse once the investigations are concluded.
You make some good points there. Especially regarding the sheer bulk of Islamic radicals that need to be monitored.
When you get a significant number of people under surveillance then you have to prioritise or you end up with a lot of paperwork and no action. Which pretty much describes the situation we are in here. There are simply too many red flags to monitor and corners are cut. Well less cut than hacked away. Computer analysis just doesn’t cut it.
Now if they allowed us to be armed then we would be able to help deal with the ones that get through. Or even if the vetted these nutters and just didn’t through the doors open.
Ooops. I’m now another potential threat on the radar. I’ve just replaced this one, if I wasn’t already on the radar, and then we have to add the couple that have undoubtedly been encouraged by this lunatics actions.
It isn’t getting any easier for them and they think by allowing them access to our emails, whatsapp and snapchat etc. will. How crazy is that. They will probably more than double that watch list with all the comments that are going around at the moment.
The part that annoys me is these nutters are just lazy. There are plenty of politicians and other targets out there why do they go for the general public? It doesn’t gain them anything.
Agree there that there are so many red flags regarding Islamic terror suspects that it becomes difficult to keep an eye on them all. The concentration on jihadist threats from the internet is a dead end in my view. I suspect that the really dangerous jihadists are very security aware and cook up their plots off line.
Too busy looking for virtually non-existent white supremacists so as to avoid having to confront and name the real problems, Islam and their violent, genuinely racist Leftist apologist useful idiots. Meanwhile, let’s keep talking about Christmas parties to divert our attention.