“Islamophobia”

The father of the Manchester Arena bomber influenced his son’s extremist beliefs, a senior MI5 officer has told the inquiry into the attack.

A senior director general, referred to as Witness J, told the Manchester Arena Inquiry an assessment by the security services found it was “likely” Ramadan Abedi shaped his son Salman’s views.

The court has previously heard Ramadan Abedi has refused to help the inquiry.

He remains a suspect in the police investigation into the atrocity.

The Home Office must take greater responsibility for how deradicalisation programmes are working with potential terrorists, a review will recommend.

The review found that Prevent, the government’s counterextremism strategy, was ineffective in some parts of the UK because certain local authorities were involving Muslim groups that actively opposed the programme in the process of deciding whether individuals need to be deradicalised.

… Separately, a report by the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank, has warned of a “fundamental mismatch” between the threat posed by Islamic extremism and the number of referrals to Prevent.

Despite Islamic extremists making up three quarters of offenders in prison for terror-related offences and the vast majority of suspects on the MI5’s terror watchlist, they represent only 22 per cent of all Prevent referrals and 30 per cent of Channel cases.

Calls to overhaul Prevent as it is revealed ‘divisive groups who DON’T believe in counter-terror strategy help decide if individuals need to be deradicalised’ – after Islamists behind four recent attacks were ALL referred to scheme

Prevent is being undermined by activists who are opposed to its very existence being allowed to decide if individuals need to be deradicalised, a review will find – as it emerged Islamists behind four recent attacks were all referred to the scheme.

The review – which will be handed to Priti Patel next month – found that Prevent was ineffective in some parts of the UK because councils were involving Muslim groups with a ‘divisive’ agenda.

… Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior adviser at the Counter Extremism Project, said the official narrative that the far-right is the fastest growing threat is a ‘comfort blanket’ obscuring the ‘patently more potent threat of Islamist extremism’.

‘The body count does not lie,’ he said.