Far right terror fears

The growing threat of terrorism from the far right is worrying the police, and attracting the attention of the media. According to the Sunday Times:

A network of suspected far-right extremists with access to 300 weapons and 80 bombs has been uncovered by counter-terrorism detectives.

Thirty-two people have been questioned in a police operation that raises the prospect of a right-wing bombing campaign against mosques. Police are said to have recovered a British National party membership card and other right-wing literature during a raid on the home of one suspect charged under the Terrorism Act.

In England’s largest seizure of a suspected terrorist arsenal since the IRA mainland bombings of the early 1990s, rocket launchers, grenades, pipe bombs and dozens of firearms have been recovered in the past six weeks during raids on more than 20 properties. Several people have been charged and more arrests are imminent. Current police activity is linked to arrests in Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

The Guardian also reports, from seemingly different sources:

Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command fears the extreme right will stage a deadly terrorist attack in Britain to try to stoke racial tensions, the Guardian has learned.

Senior officers fear the attack will be a "spectacular" that is designed to kill people. The counter-terrorism unit has moved officers to beef up its monitoring of the extreme right's potential to stage attacks.

Commander Shaun Sawyer told a meeting of British Muslims concerned about the danger posed to their communities that police were responding to the growing threat.

Sawyer said of the far right: "I fear that they will have a spectacular ... They will carry out an attack that will lead to a loss of life or injury to a community somewhere. They're not choosy about which community."

This is something we posted on after the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. last month. The number of people on the far right arrested for terrorism-related activity is still small - in double figures rather than in the hundreds or thousands - but it is certainly growing. While none of the people arrested so far have shown the capability to build anything other than a rudimentary, home-made device, David Copeland demonstrated just how devastating and murderous even that kind of basic bomb can be.