Police want Muslim community's anti-terror support

Monday, 8 February 2010 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

The Muslim community should do more to help police fight extremism, a senior officer has said.

Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison is the head of West Yorkshire police, where three of the July 2005 bombers were from, and the Association of Chief Police Officers' lead spokesman on violent extremism.

He warned that it would take a generation for the government's anti-terror Prevent strategy to stop the "infection" of terrorism spreading but said doing so needed help from the Muslim community.

"We have to be alert to the risk that's ever present, so the community as a whole could do more. The Muslim community is a part of that," he said.

"I'm looking for the community to work much more closely with the police in identifying young people that they have concerns about in terms of the people that they're mixing with, the sort of websites that they're going on to and the material that they're reading.

"Now that information can only come from the community itself."

Sir Norman's comments will be broadcast on Generation Jihad at 21:00 GMT on BBC2 tonight.

Tags:
• crime
,
• domestic policy
,
• policing and crime
,
• terrorism