Much has been made about the latest terrorist killer in Manchester having been "known" to police as a possible terrorist sympathizer. For example, see 'Why wasn't he monitored?!' Rudd RIPPED APART by Sky's Sarah-Jane Mee on Manchester bomber.
It's hard to determine how many people are on that British watch list. A 2013 article at BBC.com speculated it was around 2,000. But see this pertinent piece of info from that article, to wit:
And if 2,000 people were to be followed like that, we'd be talking about 50,000 full-time spies doing nothing but following suspected terrorists. That's more than 10 times the number of people employed by MI5. The numbers don't add up.
Well, as someone once said, "deception will always be one step ahead of detection, by definition." Even with wire taps and all the surveillance cameras in place in Britain, it would be impossible to effectively monitor all those characters. As it is, it's a roll of the dice. There has to be a better way.
And see this: Why the British Terror Threat Will Not Improve Soon:
The intelligence agencies currently assess the overall risk of an attack to be “severe,” meaning another attack is “highly likely.”
Part of the reason for this is that approximately 850 Brits have traveled to Syria to fight in the conflict there. Many will have joined ISIS and are returning with training and combat experience. The U.K. will remain under threat.
At the very least, they could bar re-entry of those who left Britain to join ISIS. Otherwise, the only viable defenses seem to be the ones espoused by Donald Trump -- try to wipe out ISIS where they live and work to transform the message that potential terrorists find so persuasive. Trump isn't the first to say that. But let's hope he's more successful than others have been at that.
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10:16 AM 5/24/2017
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