Britain faces ‘full-blown Islamist insurgency’

“Intelligence chiefs are warning Tony Blair that Britain faces a full-blown Islamist insurgency, sustained by thousands of young Muslim men with military training now resident in this country…. A well-connected source said there were more than 100,000 people in Britain from ‘completely militarised’ regions, including Somalia and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa, and Afghanistan and territories bordering the country. ‘Every one of them knows how to use an AK-47,’ said the source. ‘About 10 per cent can strip and reassemble such a weapon blindfolded, and probably a similar proportion have some knowledge of how to use military explosives. That adds up to tens of thousands of men’.”

Independent on Sunday, 7 August 2005