The enemy within: Jihadist is arrested every day in Britain

Smaller airports and ports are weak spot, security bosses warn.

A JIHADI suspect is arrested each day in a bid to prevent a Paris-style attack here, Britain’s top anti-terror cop revealed yesterday.

Airport secuirty review ... armed police carry out patrol at Heathrow

It came as a review of security at smaller airports was being launched by the Government, amid fears they are a weak spot in the war against IS. The Met’s Assistant Commissioner for Special Operations Mark Rowley said there were “several thousand” homegrown terror suspects in the UK, including about 350 Brits who have returned from Syria and Iraq.

Also “several hundred” would-be jihadis were being flagged to the police each month by local authorities or other public sector bodies worried about people being radicalised in their communities.

Mr Rowley said: “We have been making an arrest a day over the last year or so, which is approaching twice what it would have been three or four years ago. 

Armed soldier patrol Brussels as city prepared to re-open

“A third of those arrests are using counter-terrorism powers. We are prosecuting people whether it’s a plot or whether it’s having terrorist training or disseminating material.


“The other two-thirds are more disruptive. We are prosecuting them for fraud, sexual offending, anything we can use to disrupt their conduct. “These are people who are extremists generally migrating towards terrorism and rather than waiting to the last minute, anything we can do to disrupt them is important.”

The details came in an extraordinary evidence session to MPs on the powerful Commons Home Affairs Select Committee. Mr Rowley admitted he was the police officer who warned last week that savage cuts to police funding would severely affect Britain’s ability to respond to a Paris-style attack.

He said there were officers in France following the massacre “harvesting information” that could help Britain tackle IS radicals. Cops and security services have a “prioritisation meeting” every week to decide which operations require the most attention, he revealed. He said that it was impossible to guarantee 100 per cent success in stopping an attack.

But he insisted Britain held an advantage over other European nations due to police and security services working hand in hand for 40 years because of the historic terror threat from the IRA.

Home Office counter-terror chief Charles Farr then revealed that 70 British fighters had been killed in Syria and Iraq. 

And Security Minister John Hayes said there was a “really significant challenge” in stopping jihadists slipping through the net at smaller airfields and ports. He admitted the Government had to “refresh our thinking about those points of entry for goods and people”.

Britain’s smaller airfields and ports were first identified as a potential weakness in 2002. At the time, Lord Carlile called them the “soft underbelly” of the war against terrorism. The concerns were echoed four years ago by the then Chief Inspector of Borders John Vine.

Mr Hayes yesterday added that ministers were also reviewing the police’s ability to respond to Paris-style attacks — and a crackdown on the illicit sale of lethal weapons. 

He also praised hackers’ collective Anonymous for their part in hitting back at IS online. Yesterday it also emerged that dog handlers and traffic cops could be trained to use guns.

Greater Manchester Police hope to make them “part-time” firearms officers to help deal with a terror attack while facing severe budget cuts. Riot squad officers, used to patrolling protests and football crowds, are also being lined-up as part of the initiative to “multi-skill” cops.

Assistant Chief Constable John O’Hare revealed the strategy, which could be rolled out by next March, just months after shelving plans to axe 25 marksmen. He said: “A number of units will combine to create a single team with officers being trained across different specialisms.”