Fighting extremism

Home secretary Jacqui Smith has delivered her first major speech on radicalisation.

Ms Smith called for a clampdown on internet sites containing extremist language promoting the values of al-Qaida and other terrorist organisations.

Security experts say such websites have an inflammatory effect on those prone to radicalisation but are not used by those planning major terror attacks.

The home secretary argued they make a difference, however, and said she would press internet providers to close websites deemed unacceptable.

Details of how such regulation of the private sector would work in practice have yet to be revealed and may come under criticism from business groups.

And Ms Smith's stance could also be challenged by free speech activists, again raising the ongoing debate about the extent to which civil liberties need to be curtailed in the 'war against terror'.

Not that the home secretary used that phrase, put into popular use by the post-9/11 Republican administration of US president George Bush.

A Whitehall source tells today's Telegraph newspaper that references to the 'war on terror' is to be permanently dropped by the government in a bid to avoid glamourising terrorism.

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