A counter-terrorism raid in the city of Birmingham resulted in the arrest of eight suspects who allegedly were involved in a plan to kidnap a British Muslim soldier (clearly an apostate by an Islamists definition). The BBC notes British police had monitored the suspects for a period of a few weeks after “intelligence came into the system which caused alarm and that in turn led to action.”

It appears these arrests though are only the beginning.

“This remains a dynamic, fluid operation and it is by no means finished,” said Assistant Chief Constable David Shaw of West Midlands police. “We are literally right at the foothills of what is a very, very major investigation for us.”

Residents in the area of at least one of the suspects have responded by claiming British harassment, stating there are people arrested in the area all the time before being released.  Indeed when I was looking up information for a post I composed yesterday I ran across a British Muslim site which argued the exactly same thing and used the Muslim Council of Britain as a source of the outrage.

I’m mixed when it comes to this.  First off, I don’t know if what they say is anywhere near true.  I’ve noted several arrests, including one earlier this week, in England over the nation’s anti-terror laws, but I’ve also seen the polls and hidden videos which clearly show radical Islam has a foothold in England.  It certainly makes sense the British authorities have arrested the wrong people or gone off of bad information because unfortunately that happens, but the reason isn’t because there are no Islamists in England but rather the Islamic community is not willing to turn them in and shine the light upon them.

The foiled plot would have diverged from causing mass casualties and instead focused on instilling fear among all Brits, but particularly British Muslims, and there’s a reason for that.

Sky TV quoted sources as saying the intent was to mimic the abductions and beheadings of Westerners carried out by militants in Iraq and post a video of the killing on the Internet . . .

A defense source confirmed to Reuters the suspected target was a Muslim serving in the British military. A police source said the suspected plot would not have caused mass casualties, but would have involved a new terrorism tactic.

It is a silence the critics from within tactic this alleged terrorism plot would strive to achieve, and had it achieved it such an attack it would have been very interesting if England’s ‘moderate’ Muslim groups would have condemned not just the action, but how the terrorists decided to use the forbidden takfir charge in order to pick a victim.  As I’ve noted previously, Islamists get away with calling someone a non-Muslim, but Muslims don’t call Islamists un-Islamic.

The larger issue however is for the British authorities to find something between perceived harassment an prevention of terrorist attacks.  Assuming all eight of the suspects in this morning’s raid are guilty of the plot suspected, will it matter if a British Muslim populace is told by some leading British figures the British police is targeting Muslims (George Galloway immediately comes to mind for doing just that) and Brits of Asian descent?

It was an intelligence tip into British police that led to the watching of these suspects, a tip presumably from a Pakistani-Brit who is a Muslim, but if these arrested suspects turn out to be nothing it very well could hurt future investigations.  Certainly I am not arguing on behalf of no arrests, but those who celebrate failures and whisper successes are hurting the cause of fighting against home-grown terrorism in England, and there’s no question England has more than its fair share of Islamists and Islamists in training based on recent polls.

Thanks to reader Richard Chown for the tip.