Al-Qaeda is recruiting British children to carry out a terrorist attack on home soil, the head of the U.K.’s domestic security service said.
Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, said the group led by Osama bin Laden is carrying out a “deliberate campaign” against Britain to sign up young people.
“As I speak, terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country,” Evans told a group of newspaper editors in Manchester, northwestern England, according to remarks published on MI5’s website.
“They are radicalizing, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism,” Evans said. “This year, we have seen individuals as young as 15 and 16 implicated in terrorist-related activity.”
On July 7, 2005, suicide bombers killed 52 people on London’s transport system. The men who carried out the attack were born and educated in the U.K., with the youngest bomber age 18. After a separate, foiled attack on London on July 21, 2005, men who resided in the U.K. were convicted of terror offenses.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested in the U.K. for terrorism-related offences since the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S.
Evans said the number of people in Britain identified by MI5 as having links with terrorism had risen to at least 2,000, up from 1,600 last year.
