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Al-Qaeda cells in Scotland, warns top cop - [Sunday Herald]
‘We’re as much a terrorist target as London’
By Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor
AL-QAEDA cells are active in Scotland and the country is as much at risk of being hit by a major terrorist atrocity as London, according to Scotland’s leading police chief.
Cathy Jamieson, the Scottish justice minister who is flying to Brussels on Tuesday to discuss a European-wide approach to terrorism, also warned that Scotland is not safe from terrorists and urged the public to “remain alert”.
John Vine, the head of the Association of Police Officers Scotland and the chief constable of Tayside Police, told the Sunday Herald in an exclusive interview: Scotland is a terrorist target. We have to be as vigilant as every other country. Special Branch is monitoring people who are of interest to us, but I could never say that we are on top of all the suspects.
Vine suggested new legislation should be enacted to control and monitor anyone entering the UKs borders. We dont know exactly how many terrorists may be in Scotland, but we are watching people, he said. It is a frightening situation. What we are seeing in intelligence terms is that we are very vulnerable and we need to be vigilant in order to try and avoid being the victims of terrorist attacks.
Just because we are at a geographic extremity of the UK does not mean we are any safer than we would be if we were sat in an office in London. He said he agreed with the comments made by Sir John Stevens, head of the Metropolitan Police, that it was inevitable that London would be hit by terrorists sooner or later.
Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as high-profile events like Hogmanay celebrations, are seen as the most inviting targets for Islamic terrorists. Vine said the government should give the police more money and manpower to plan and prepare for dealing with a terrorist attack. We dont know where the gaps might be in our planning, he added.
When we go to the USA we fill in forms on the plane, put our destination, contact phone numbers for where we will be in America, and when you leave you are checked out again.
It is a rigorous system and perhaps we need to look at systems like that to ensure we know who is in the country and who isnt. We are unclear about who exactly is in the UK as we have open borders between all European states.
That leaves us more vulnerable than we used to be. Open borders are very convenient to the legitimate traveller but in terms of terrorism it leaves us a bit naked. We could do with a more robust system.
Every Scottish police force has placed its Special Branch officers under the central command of a new co-ordinator based in London in order to give the UK police a joined-up response to terrorism.
Vine also said that fighting the war on terror was a drain on finite resources from frontline policing, as the overall pot of money has not been increased.
Jamieson told the Sunday Herald: The horrific events in Madrid have confirmed that the threat of terror is a factor for every country in Europe. Ruthless international terrorists are mobile. They do not respect borders. Scotland is in no way a safe haven from these threats.
Jamieson said governments had to work closely together, across administrations and jurisdictions, to ensure that we close down the potential hiding places for those who would perpetrate these crimes. We are all rightly conscious of our unique legal systems and domestic structures but in todays environment we cannot afford to be precious about them.
Scotland, like the rest of the UK, remains on a high level of alert. Security is kept under constant review to ensure we are as prepared as we can be. We are continuing to work very closely with our counterparts in the UK and the EU in relation to this.
April 3, 2004 at 05:35 PM in Al Qaeda | Permalink | TrackBack (20) | Top of page | Blog Home