UK terrorist threat not major despite arrest.

(From Insurance Day)

Byline: Jon Guy

THE arrest of a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist in the UK has heightened fears that the country may become a direct target for Islamic terrorists but a leading insurance adviser believes the threat to the UK is not major, writes Jon Guy, London.

Police swooped to arrest Sajid Mahomed Badat, a British-born student of Islam, and recovered a quantity of explosives from his home. Simon Sole, managing director of Exclusive Analysis, the company that provides war, terrorism, civil and political risk intelligence to a number of leading insurers, said the arrest highlights that al-Qaeda is still not sophisticated in the UK.

Mr Sole, who is an expert on Islamic terrorism, said: "The arrest is consistent with our view of al-Qaeda as a fractured organisation, which now relies on more amateurs with little training and who are therefore easier for the Security Services to detect.

"As in other parts of the world it is indigenous Sunni extremists with only limited recourse to outside help who conduct attacks. The vast majority of Muslims in the UK are very threatened by this extremism; hence the intelligence take on them has been very good." He added: "These men are not professional terrorists like those who conducted the September 11 attacks, and any acts they do manage to commit will almost certainly be ...