LONDON (AFP) – Britain is to deploy teams of intelligence officers and surveillance experts in cities where it is feared that extremists are radicalising Muslim youth, it was reported.
The internal security service, M15, will fan officers out from its London HQ in a bid to snuff out any incipient terrorist threats within the urban Muslim communities, the Times said, citing “government sources”.
It is hoped the scheme will greatly improve cooperation between special police services and counter-espionage officers.
Teams of intelligence officers will be discreetly deployed in several towns in northwest England within the next couple of months, the paper added.
“The scale of the terrorist threat is such that MI5 and the police need to be able to work together even more closely, which means that the Security Service must be dispersed in a different way, to be able to respond rapidly to any particular activity,” an official told the paper.
The government is also seeking powers to detain suspects longer without charge, according to a senior legal official quoted in the article.