Islamic leaders urged to combat radicalisation

The war in Iraq has become a "convenient excuse" for a generation of young British Muslim men to take part in a violent jihad, the Government's independent reviewer of terrorism laws has warned.

Lord Carlile of Berriew QC said Britain must confront the radicalisation and the causes of radicalisation in the UK or suffer more atrocities like 7 July. He said: "We do need to have much more open discussion about what is the cause of and who are the people involved in the current violent jihadist movement.

"I think we have to be frank about certain things. It is now clearly the case that although the Iraq war did not create violent jihad it has become a convenient excuse for violent jihad. We need to understand how events like the Iraq war are causing occasional radicalisation of young Muslim British males ­ and try to tackle the root cause."

Speaking after the revelation that Britain's security service is investigating 30 live terrorist plots, Lord Carlile said this confirmed his own understanding of the threat. He applauded the decision by Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, head of MI5, to go public with what she knew about the threat: "I have repeatedly encouraged the Government to give out as much intelligence as they can. It is very important that the public should know this is for real, that there is a real terror threat ... it's important for there to be as much transparency as possible, but because of the nature of the material it will not be possible to be completely transparent."

Lord Carlile, who was appointed as independent reviewer by the Government in 2001, said it was incumbent upon religious leaders to use their influence to tackle the threat posed by a small minority of violent jihadists. He said they should remind people that suicide bombers and violent jihad are " heresies". He said religious leaders from all faiths must work to combat these heresies, which were being preached by "turbulent priests".

And he emphasised the need for this to be a multi-faith enterprise by saying that one of the "most unhelpful interventions'' this year was made by the Pope in his quotation of a Byzantine emperor who said that the Prophet Mohamed had brought the world only "evil and inhuman things", which provoked anger in the Muslim world, although the Vatican denied that Pope Benedict had intended to offend Muslims.

Lord Carlile said he expected the Government to introduce additional anti-terror legislation to combat the threat identified by Dame Eliza. Intercept evidence is inadmissible in court, but the Government proposesto change this. Lord Carlile supports this although he believes it will be used rarely.

He said: "If intercept evidence is available in court it could be revealed to other suspects that the state is interested in them. And this is not going to be evidence that the state is going to wish to place before a court." Part of Lord Carlile's role is to review the use of control orders. He admitted he would have "real concern" if there were to be a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights.