SMALL PERCENTAGE, BIG NUMBER

A leaked British government report is not encouraging:

It paints a chilling picture of the scale of the task in tackling terrorism. Drawing on information from MI5, it concludes: “Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1%.”

This equates to fewer than 16,000 potential terrorists and supporters out of a Muslim population of almost 1.6m.

It only takes one fanatic with a bomb ...

Update: Daniel Pipes takes a look at the British government's report, Young Muslims and Extremism, mentioned above:

If one accepts the report’s estimate (pdf 2, p. 5) that the Muslim population of Great Britain numbers 1.6 million, then 16,000 “British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity.”

“Extremely small”? Excuse me, but that number strikes me as an extremely large.

That the British authorities do not recognize that they should worry about thousands of terrorists in their midst is reason to worry what planet they inhabit. Their waffling, myopia, and general incompetence make one despair for his country.

The four-part report is available in pdf via the Times article linked at top.