Dozens of radicalised British Muslims are being trained by militant Islamists to fight in a “holy war” in Somalia, it can be revealed.
Somali hardline islamist Hisbul Islam militia walk past at a training camp on the outskirts of Afgoye district in Somalia's lower Shabelle region Photo: AFP/GETTY
Up to 50 British “volunteers”, including white Christian converts and British-Somali men, have been recruited to fight for Al Shabaab, the al-Qaeda inspired Somali terrorist group.
Intelligence experts believe the British volunteers form the core of an international force of foreign fighters drawn from the United States, Canada, Europe and East Africa.
Government officials now fear that the failed state is rapidly becoming a recruiting ground for British Jihadists in much the same way as Afghanistan was in the 1990s.
MI5 already ranks Somalia as one of the top three countries in the world, alongside Yemen and Pakistan, that poses a potential terrorist threat to Britain.
The Security Service fears that British volunteers who survive the bloody civil war may return home as hardened terrorists eager to launch attacks against the UK.
The warning comes ahead of an international summit to be hosted by David Cameron next week on the future of Somalia, a country he recently described as “a failed state that directly threatens British interests” through kidnapping, piracy and the radicalisation of young Britons. Al-Shabaab has managed to generate tens of thousands of pounds in funding through the UK-based Somali population which is estimated at 250,000.
While some British Somalis willingly donate to the terrorist organisation, a proportion of the cash legitimately sent back to extended families in the country is syphoned off by the Islamists. Read the rest on: Telegraph
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