THREAD: Ahmed Hassan and Khairi Saadallah share some intere…

Both Saadallah and Hassan entered the country from conflict zones as asylum seekers. Both claimed/were revealed to have been affiliated with Islamist militias & were combat seasoned. Both had extensive contact with counter terror Police/Prevent until days before their offences.

In both cases other professionals involved with the perpetrators or NGOs picked up on an accelerating descent into radicalised behaviour and alerted professional authorities. These concerns were either not taken seriously or not acted on.

I'm not going to comment on government policy for asylum seekers but it is well evidenced that such people, particularly if young or unaccompanied seem much more likely to suffer from PTSD and other psychological problems. There is a relationship between this & violent extremism.

So where we have large numbers of people escaping violence in other countries to UK/already settled and psychologically damaged/culturally disabled by their experience and socialisation we also have a clearly demonstrated *potential* security risk.

But there is very little in the way of official support for (re) integration. In eg Germany there's much more intervention (for a much bigger problem) but resettlement is seen as a vital role, involving state & well resourced NGOs. We have a threadbare system here by comparison.

The Intelligence and security committee recorded 'fundamental failures' by police, security service and Home Office to spot Hassan's well trailed radicalisation. A massacre was avoided only by pure luck. Sadly we will have to wait for Inquests on Saadallah's victim for answers.

Our violent extremist risk management system is still organisationally fragmented and philosophically broken. Lessons do not seem to have been learned three years on. It's simply not good enough to say Saadallah was not on the terror radar, he plainly *should* have been.

So the question I posed at the beginning of the week on @CapX still stands. Is what happened at Reading the 'acceptable level of terrorism' we can't get any better at preventing? I hope not for the families of future victims who have a date with those hiding in plain sight now.

ENDS?
https://t.co/N0kluDbkck