David Cameron: Britons need to be permanently vigilant following Kenya terror attack
Britons must increasingly employ ‘caution’ and ‘permanent vigilance’ with regards to terrorism, David Cameron has said.
The prime minister’s comments come in the wake of the mass murder at the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya, which is thought to have been perpetrated by Somali terrorist fraction Al-Shabaab.
Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday morning, Mr Cameron said: ‘We don’t have intelligence that something is about to happen, but it pays to be very, very prepared, very, very cautious, and to work out we have everything in place we can to deal with awful events like this.’
He said that officials convened this week to discuss whether Britain was prepared for a similar attack on home soil, and whether gaps in preparation need to be addressed.
The PM said that there is a continual concern regarding the ‘hotbed of terrorism in Somalia’ which ‘spills over into other countries’, and whether an act such as the one seen last week in Kenya could be executed here too.
Critical Cobra meetings establish whether international events could have repercussions in the UK and whether everything from the emergency services to the MI5 would be ready to face such an incident.
‘What it shows I think is that we have to keep going against Islamist extremism, whether that is people that are home-grown in our own country or whether it is extremism that is fomenting either on the Horn of Africa or in West Africa or in Afghanistan and Pakistan,’ he said.
‘It goes to this whole argument about why we need well-funded intelligence services, why we need to be engaged in the world, we need to share intelligence with others and why we have to be permanently vigilant.’
At least 67 people – including six Britons – were killed and hundreds more injured after the bloody massacre in the Nairobi shopping centre.
Gunmen staged a rampage, which began on September 21 and ended three days later, in protest at Kenya’s military presence in Somalia.
metro