The former head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 (now known as SIS) argues that the UK should take a more proportionate approach to counter terrorism policy despite the media headlines and government warnings about jihadis returning home from Syria.
Sir Richard Dearlove says that the resources thrown at serious threats to Britian – such as the Soviet Union during the Cold War and Irish terrorism in the 70s and 80s – were far less than the far less serious threat posed by al Qaeda-inspired terrorism now.
He says that Britain’s security establishment is still in a “9/11 mindset” and should update its thinking to a post Arab Spring analysis where so called Islamic terrorism targets the West less and is more bogged down in a Sunni-Shia civil war.
Dearlove says that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are indirectly funding groups like ISIS whose startling advance in Iraq could not have been spontaneous. And he says that Saudi Arabia is behind any militancy that seeks to target Shias in the region.
The ex MI6 chief also says the Sunni-Shia conflict in the Middle East is affecting Muslims in the West with rising levels of sectarianism.
He concludes by saying that the media and the government is exaggerating the terror threat posed by British jihadis and runs the risk of demonising the Muslim community.
Rather, state resources should be redirected away from “Islamic terrorism” and geared towards real strategic threats such as Russia and China.
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