I'm not surprised there was a terror arrest in Newport – as a Welsh Muslim, I've watched Wales become a hotbed of extremism

With fresher’s weeks underway at the nine universities across Wales, I do wonder how many youngsters will be vulnerable to radical views and ideologies

A police officer stands about a cordon near a home being searched in relation to the Parsons Green attack on 20 September in Newport, Wales (Getty)

Having grown up in Cardiff (and having been born in Caerphilly), I’ve seen Wales change in ways that make me feel uneasy. To articulate uncomfortable truths about the place you live in is hard – but nowadays I feel it’s necessary.

Wales in recent years has been home to both a growing far-right and Islamist extremism. Among the racist neo-Nazi groups is the South Wales British Movement, whose members brandish swastikas and try to recruit impressionable youngsters to their xenophobic cause.

Two far-right bands from Swansea and Merthyr Tydfil have been identified as among the most influential groups disseminating hate in Britain; one of the bands posed with KKK members while wearing a hood and lynching a “golliwog” puppet. Recently, far-right hackers gained control of a Cardiff billboard, posting images of swastikas and messages mocking Islam.

While this was going on so close to home, I watched with horror as the events at Parsons Green unfolded last week – and we then discovered that three suspects had been finding refuge in South Wales. Local MP Jessica Morden said she found it “shocking” that these people were residing here in Wales. That in itself is a problem. It should not be shocking to her. You can see it every day: under our noses, religion is being politicised and used by some extremists as a badge of honour.

In 2012, two Cardiff brothers – Gurukanth Desai and Abdul Miah – were jailed, along with Omar Latif, for plotting Mumbai-style terrorist attacks in Britain. They had plotted a Christmas bombing campaign from Cardiff with targets including the London Stock Exchange, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The gang was made up of men from all over the UK, but the majority were from Cardiff. That same year, a man was jailed for eight months after threatening to machine-gun police officers who stopped a meeting at a Cardiff community centre

Then there is Ruksana Begum – also from Cardiff, with a first-class degree in accountancy – who was jailed because she had two editions of Al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine on her phone. Khuram Iqbal, from Cardiff, allegedly posted a series of links to extremist videos on his Facebook and Twitter pages and called himself the “father of terrorism”. And we have the recent case of the unstable Muslim convert, Lee Griffiths from Swansea, jailed for five years for having a stash of bomb-making manuals, instructions on how to carry out “lone wolf” knife attacks, and copies of the Isis magazine Rumiyah.

Perhaps most infamously we saw in 2014 Reyadd Khan and Nasser Muthana leave to fight in Syria. They became friends at a Cardiff school where Al-Manar Mosque was holding officially sanctioned sessions. In 2013, a leaked “restricted” report called the Wales Contest Plan exposed the ­growing radicalisation threat in Cardiff schools and proposed extra training in how to spot extremism for staff at schools “identified as having increased risks” of radicalism.

The Wales Extremism and Counter Terrorism Unit has previously said it is aware that locations in Ceredigion, Powys and Pembrokeshire are being used for training purposes for Islamic extremists who are radicalising youngsters. Many vulnerable young Muslims are also being recruited face-to-face at one-off meetings, often “pop-up” style events which see rooms being hired out in restaurants under the guise of a function.

With all this going on, I don’t think it’s “shocking” that potential terrorists have been hiding out in Wales. The engagement of the Welsh government with self-appointed, power-hungry “community leaders” has been a disaster for Wales. Yet many figures in Welsh politics are reluctant to open their eyes to this or speak out, for fear of being labelled racist or intolerant. The facts speak for themselves. Wales is a small nation, with a small Muslim population. Yet we have a big problem.

With fresher’s weeks underway at the nine universities across Wales, I do wonder how many youngsters will be vulnerable to radical views and ideologies. Cult-like groups have long targeted universities, because they contain an array of dynamic young people willing to engage with new ideas.

I recently met a vibrant young woman from the South Wales valleys. Her father is white Welsh and her mother is Asian. She said to me: “Growing up, I went through so much racism: people would tell me go back where I came from… I have been chased with a knife, I’ve been spat on, I’ve had eggs thrown at me, we’ve had a nail hammered through our doorbell so it would keep ringing. This isn’t uncommon in Wales.”

She told me that this experience pushed her to embrace her Pakistani heritage and Islam, about which she previously knew nothing. She now wears a hijab.

Growing up in Wales, I never saw women in full face veils; now it is a common sight. As a feminist and somebody who believes passionately in equality, I respect the right of women to dress how they want. But the face veil is a drastic and puritanical move away from progressive values. Furthermore, it is in no way theologically prescribed: there is nothing in the Quran to say women should dress this way, but there is something making them feel like this is now the right decision to make.

How many more young people in Wales, feeling fed up and tolerated rather than accepted, are moving away from their communities and embracing the cultural customs of other countries? And how many might have done this to a more dangerous extent? I shudder to think.

Shazia Awan is an equality activist and Director at production company Shoot From The Hip Media. She regularly presents on national radio and is Vice President of the Council for Voluntary Youth Services in Wales.