Al Qaeda-Trained British Islamists Return To Britain From Pakistan

I tell ya, if you live in Britain...this story from The Long War Journal has to do two things: 1. Send a shiver down your spine 2. Get you plenty irate at the Pakistani government. Basically what has happened is that 20 or so British muslims travelled to Pakistan, trained in terrorism by the likes of al Qaeda and then returned to Britain...to...well, you can imagine. Here's the killer - the Pakistani government via their intelligence service KNEW about these guys and didn't say a word to the British until too late, when these terrorists had already gotten back into Britain. Here's some of the details from the article:

More than 20 Britons who have trained in al Qaeda terror camps inside Pakistan have returned to Britain, according to Pakistani intelligence.
The Britons, whose families are from Pakistan, were monitored by Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency, Sky News reported. But the ISI failed to notify British intelligence until after the men entered the country, the news agency reported.
Pakistani intelligence officials were indifferent about the activities of the Britons, sources told Sky News. "We know the number of British Pakistanis engaged in what we would call suspicious activities is much higher -- probably in the hundreds -- but, to be frank, this isn't a Pakistani priority," one official said. "The intelligence services here have much bigger things to worry about and these guys haven't committed any crime on Pakistani soil."

And it's not like these are just some schmucks that went to Pakistan to "observe" or visit their homeland...the report says that at least four of these identified terrorists actually took part in battles inside of Afghanistan.

The rest of the article does a nice job of laying out how the U.S. has tried to disrupt the al Qaeda training and planning that is going on in Pakistan with drone attacks, etc., but one can see how mute that all can be when you literally have western islamists able to travel into Pakistan, get their training, get their mission and simply return back into their home country without anyone blinking an eye. I'm curious, just what safeguards has the U.S. taken to ensure that a Pakistani student in America, who goes back to Pakistan for "a month long visit" and returns back to the U.S. isn't carrying back the latest terror plot from al Qaeda?

Al Qaeda-trained Britons return from Pakistan

British intelligence officers are nearly overwhelmed with tracking terror suspects operating inside Britain, many of whom are Pakistanis. In November 2008, an intelligence report stated there are "extremist concentrations" in "London, [and] Birmingham, with significant extremist networks in the South East, notably Luton."
Thousands of suspected British terrorists are supporting terror attacks inside Britain and abroad. "The majority of extremists are British nationals of south Asian, mainly Pakistani origin but there are also extremists from north and east Africa, Iraq and the Middle East," the report stated.
Al Qaeda seeks Western passport holders
Al Qaeda has long sought to penetrate security in Western countries by recruiting and training operatives who hold dual passports. These operatives have a better chance of being able to travel to and from Pakistan without raising too many flags.
Many of the major post-Sept. 11 plots and attacks against the West have been traced back to Pakistan's tribal areas. Western Arabs and South Asians have traveled to Pakistan's tribal areas for approval, guidance, training, financing, and support to conduct their attacks.
US intelligence officials are concerned that al Qaeda's next big attack, like past attacks and foiled plots, will originate in Pakistan's tribal areas.
"We believe the next major attack will be carried out by someone carrying a Western passport," a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal in September 2008. The official was clearly worried about the deteriorating security situation in northwestern Pakistan.
"It is imperative we stop the next [Sept. 11] attack," the official said, noting that the Predator campaign in northwestern Pakistan is aimed at taking out al Qaeda's external network, which is tasked with striking major targets in the West. "This is what we are trying to prevent."
The US has conducted multiple strikes in northwestern Pakistan in an effort to incapacitate al Qaeda's external network. The US targeted al Qaeda and Taliban camps 36 times in 2008, and have hit nine camps and compounds this year. Only 10 strikes were carried out in Pakistan during 2006 and 2007 combined.
Many of the strikes in 2008 and 2009 can be directly traced back to al Qaeda's external operations network.