No failsafe way to spot potential attackers

Analysis: Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5, has all but abandoned trying to create a failsafe profiling technique for spotting potential Islamic terrorists.

Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5, has all but abandoned trying to create a failsafe profiling technique for spotting potential Islamic terrorists.

While the two men responsible for the Glasgow Airport bomb plot fit neatly into some of the early criteria - both middle-class and well-educated, like the 15 Saudis who carried out the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks in the US - they do not fit others.

One counter-intelligence officer who spoke to The Herald yesterday said: "British-based Islamic terrorists or terrrorist suspects are as varied as the UK's Muslim population. They defy stereotyping.

"Most are male, but come from diverse Pakistani, Middle-Eastern and European backgrounds with few obvious links between them. While most are well-educated, that is not a constant factor. Some have university degrees, while others have just basic secondary school education and no formal qualifications."

A recent Dutch study of 242 Islamic radicals convicted or accused of planning terrorist attacks in Europe between 2001 and 2006 found that the majority were of Arab descent but had been born and raised in Europe in lower or middle-class families.

Yesterday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner John McDowall, who heads Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command, said fundamentalism could spread in every part of society, including highly trained professions.

"These individuals were not on our radar and that in itself is very interesting," he said. "When you look at the profile of these individuals they are very different from the terrorists we have dealt with in this country before - being professional people.

"I personally find it bizarre that a person who has trained as a doctor can seek to take life in such a cruel way."

Mr McDowall said the convicted men were unusual as they did not travel abroad for terrorist training, something seen in both July 2005 plots. Bilal Abdulla met Kafeel Ahmed at an Islamic meeting house while the two men were studying in Cambridge.

Mr McDowall said: "I don't think we know for certain, but our sense is that they met in this country. When they hatched the plot is unclear, but there was a meeting of minds while they were working in this country."

The detective said they were probably inspired by al Qaeda in Iraq, but said they were self-starters with little or no contact with overseas commanders.

He said: "I think this was a group that was largely self-motivated, came up with the ideas themselves, tutored themselves through the internet. I don't think they received significant training elsewhere, which is unusual from what we have had in the past.

"The claim has been made by al Qaeda in Iraq that they were behind this or responsible for it, but for me this is at a distance."

About half of the UK's terrorists were born here, while others came to Britain in later life. A number adopted extreme views many years after arrival and were otherwise leading normal, undistinguished lives.

A surprising number were not strict or even regularly practising Muslims and lacked "religious literacy", an intelligence source said. There was even surprising evidence that a well-established religious identity provided a bulwark against radicalisation.

Far from being loners with no ties, most of those over 30 were married and had children, dispelling the theory that al Qaeda's "cannon-fodder" was drawn from the ranks of the sexually frustrated and lured to suicide and martyrdom by the promise of virgins waiting for them in paradise.