(MENAFN- Arab Times) Prime Minister David Cameron warned on Monday that Islamic State militants based in Syria and Iraq were planning specific attacks against Britain and posed an existential threat to the West. Cameron was speaking after an Islamist gunman killed up to 30 British tourists in an attack last Friday that British politicians have described as the single worst assault on their nationals since the bombing of the London underground in 2005. "It is an existential threat because what is happening here is the perversion of a great religion and the creation of this poisonous death cult is seducing too many young minds," Cameron told BBC radio. "There are people in Iraq and Syria who are plotting to carry out terrible acts in Britain and elsewhere and as long as ISIL (Islamic State) exists in those two countries we are at threat," said Cameron. Britain's international terror threat is currently set at "severe," its second highest level, and a rung which means an attack is "highly likely." Police say they have launched one of their largest counter- terrorism operations in a decade after the murders in Tunisia.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Cameron signalled he wanted authorities to take a tougher line against Muslim extremists in Britain to do more to challenge what he said were their unacceptable views. "We must be more intolerant of intolerance - rejecting anyone whose views condone the Islamist extremist narrative," Cameron wrote. Cameron called for a fightback against extremism on Monday in response to a mass shooting in Tunisia that killed at least 38 people including many British tourists. "To our shock and grief we must add another word: resolve. Unshakeable resolve. We will stand up for our way of life," Cameron wrote in British newspaper the Daily Telegraph calling for "a response at home and abroad". "We must be stronger at standing up for our values - of peace, democracy, tolerance, freedom," Cameron wrote. "We must be more intolerant of intolerance - rejecting anyone whose views condone the Islamist extremist narrative and create the conditions for it to flourish." The number of British victims may rise to more than 30 from the official toll of 15, the BBC reported Monday.
Three Irish people, a Belgian, a Portuguese and one German were also killed when a gunman opened fire in the beach resort of Sousse on Friday. Cameron called for efforts against online propaganda by groups like Islamic State (IS), which claimed responsibility for the attack, but also said there was a need to strengthen political institutions abroad. "We must also deal with it at its source, in places like Syria, Iraq and Libya, from where ISIL is peddling and plotting its death cult," Cameron wrote, using another term for IS. Carrying out such an attack during the holy month of Ramadan was an "insult to all Muslims worldwide", Cameron wrote.
"This is not the war between Islam and the West that ISIL want people (to) believe. It's between the extremists who want hatred to flourish and the rest of the world who want freedom to prosper." Cameron described the attack as another example of the "evil" seen in attacks in Iraq, Kenya, magazine offices in Paris and schools in Pakistan.
Flags were to be flown at half mast over Cameron's Downing Street office on Monday in sympathy with the victims and their families. It was the worst loss of British life in a terror attack since 52 people died in suicide bombings on the London transport system on July 7, 2005.
Meanwhile, Britain dispatched a Boeing C17 military transport plane to Tunisia on Monday to evacuate tourists wounded in a gun massacre, as Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to mount a full investigation. "Today we'll be sending out an RAF (Royal Air Force) C17 to help with that evacuation of casualties," Cameron told BBC radio, adding that the bodies of the British victims could also be repatriated.
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