1 Sep 2014

David Cameron’s ‘moment on terror’ a numbers game

The spectre of the British jihadist is becoming ingrained in the country’s psyche.

The Prime Minister in last Friday’s announcement described the situation as a “greater and deeper threat than anything we have seen before.”

This is Cameron’s ‘Tony Blair’ moment on terror – the one where he announced in 2005, two weeks after the 7/7 attacks, ‘the rules of game are changing.’

Of course no attack in the UK has preceded today’s proposed anti-terror measures.

There’s a different equation, a numbers game.

The more wannabe jihadists who leave the UK, the more have to be watched on return.

Currently there are 500 known to have travelled to Syria and beyond. Based on trends some security sources suspect the actual numbers could be at least 600 possibly as high as 800.

250 of the known are back in the UK and 30-40 have been killed out in Syria and Iraq.

That leaves the number of potential returnees at the very least 200 plus.

It only takes one to slip through so the government must grapple with what measures can stop the flow.

Watching them leave and then monitoring their return is a risky business.

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