Al Qaeda grooming British children to carry out terror attacks in UK

Jonathan Evans used his first public speech since his appointment in April to reveal that Islamist fanatics are stepping up their attempts to bring carnage to UK streets.

He said his agents were now trailing more than 2,000 individuals deemed to pose a threat to national security - 400 more than last year. Some suspects are as young as 15.

"As a country, we are rightly concerned to protect children from exploitation in other areas," he said.

"We need to do the same in relation to violent extremism. As I speak, terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country.

"They are radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism. This year, we have seen individuals as young as 15 and 16 implicated in terrorist-related activity."

Mr Evans's warning came ahead of today's Queen's Speech which will confirm that Labour wants to extend the 28-day period for detaining terrorist suspects without trial - a move MI5 has refused to endorse in public.

The security chief said his organisation faced the "the most immediate and acute peacetime threat" since it was established 98 years ago.

In the address to the Society of Editors' conference in Manchester, he appealed for public perseverance in the long-term fight against Islamist terrorism.

"Terrorist attacks we have seen against the UK are not simply random plots by disparate and fragmented groups," he said.

"The majority of these attacks, successful or otherwise, have taken place because Al Qaeda has a clear determination to mount terrorist attacks against the United Kingdom. This remains the case today, and there is no sign of it reducing."

Mr Evans said it was worrying that Al Qaeda had extended its activities from the lawless areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border into Iraq, Somalia and Algeria.

He emphasised the need to think "strategically" in countering a terrorist threat that could last for a generation and said the battle would not be won by the intelligence and security services alone.

"It requires a collective effort in which Government, faith communities and wider civil society have an important part to play," he added.

"And it starts with rejection of the violent extremist ideology across society - although issues of identity, relative deprivation and social integration also form important parts of the backdrop."

Responding to claims that MI5 failed to act on intelligence about the 7/7 bombings in London, Mr Evans said: "We cannot know everything.

"There will be instances when individuals come to the notice of the Security Service or the police but then subsequently carry out acts of terrorism. This is inevitable.

"Every decision to investigate someone entails a decision not to investigate someone else. Knowing of somebody is not the same as knowing all about somebody.

"It would be perverse for my service to avoid knowing of somebody for fear of being held to blame if they later become involved in an attack."

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the Government had to be careful not to heighten the sense of grievance among young Muslims.

"We must avoid an indiscriminate response that would drive young Muslims into the arms of fanatics and destroy the trust of local communitieshe said.

LibDem home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "Experience suggests that breathless talk about the terrorism threat and the powers needed to counter it can have a damaging effect on opinion in precisely those communities that we need to keep on our side."

Omer Williams, of the Bristol Muslim Cultural Society, said he was sceptical about MI5's estimate of terrorist numbers.

"They seem to paint a picture that we're knee-deep in terrorists and I think that's slightly paranoid," he said.

"I understand that due to the sensitive nature of MI5's work they cannot tell us too much information, but where are the statistics to back up his claims.

"Where is this recruitment taking place? I can't imagine Muslim children are being recruited in state school, or faith schools either, and it's not in mosques."

• Jonathan Evans was fighting Al Qaeda before the organisation became a household name.

The MI5 chief's career has been dominated by counter-terrorism and in 1999 he began investigating the network that went on to stage the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001.

He had joined MI5 in 1980 and by the mid-1990s was spearheading the fight against Irish republican terrorism.

Mr Evans, 49, took over as MI5 chief from Dame Eliza Manningham Buller in April and within days was defending the agency against accusations that it failed to stop the 2005 London bombings.

Like his predecessors, the grammar school boy with a classics degree from Bristol University avoids the limelight.

Little is known about him, save that his grandfather was a London bus driver and that he enjoys walking. But he broke cover yesterday to make his first public speech as the director general of the Security Service.

His predecessor used a similar occasion a year ago to deliver a startling update on the shadowy fight against Al Qaeda and the scale of the threat posed to Britain.