Britain's Security Service believes the threat of Islamist terrorism has levelled off in recent years, though hard-core terrorists remain committed to their cause and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Cambridge University historian Christopher Andrew writes about the issue in "The Defence of the Realm," an official history of the country's domestic spy service -- also known as MI5 -- that was released earlier this month.
Given access to 400,000 MI5 files, Andrew has dug deep into the 100-year history of the spy service for his 1,000-page work.
In a pair of chapters that examine the pre- and post-9/11 years of MI5, Andrew details how the Security Service has sought to take on the threat of Islamist terrorism -- something the spy agency only picked up on in the last two decades.
"It has come to counter-terrorism relatively late in its history," Andrew told CTV.ca in a telephone interview from Britain.
MI5 first began taking a lead role in counter-terrorism in 1992, when Irish extremists were the main terrorism concern in London.
Back then, the threat of Islamist terrorism was barely on the radar of MI5.
In 1994, for example, the Security Service commissioned an internal study on 'The Origins of Terrorism." The report concluded that Islamist terrorism posed no threat domestically, despite the fact that within 10 years, it would be a major priority for MI5.
The book says that it would still be many months until the then-head of MI5, Stella Rimington, would first hear of the al Qaeda name during a March 1996 meeting in Washington. She and another MI5 representative were "taken aback" by the U.S. interest in Osama bin Laden, who would soon be a household name in terror.
Like many other countries, the September 11 attacks put terrorism on the top of the security agenda in Britain, and by 2003, it was clear to London that al Qaeda posed a direct threat to British citizens on British soil.
The Security Service has since managed to apprehend dozens of would-be terrorists and stamp out a number of major attacks -- including the deadly, al Qaeda-linked plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners using liquid explosives for which several men received life sentences last month.
Taking off from London's Heathrow Airport, five of the targeted planes were destined for the U.S., the other two were headed for Canada. If the plan had succeeded, it would have been a British 9/11, possibly "on a larger scale" if the planes had been detonated over land, Andrew said.
MI5 also helped catch the aspiring bombers that tried to buy detonators from Momin Khawaja, the Ottawa software programmer who was convicted under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act earlier this year.
That case -- known as Operation Crevice -- stemmed from an investigation into a group of second-generation British citizens, mostly of Pakistani origin, who appeared to be sending money to al Qaeda members in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A seven-week-long investigation found a group of plotters who planned to attack nightclubs, pubs and other social spots in the United Kingdom. Five men were eventually sentenced to life in prison as a result of the plot.
Between January 2007 and January 2009 alone, Britain has convicted more than 86 people on terrorism charges.
But even with these successes, the Security Service admits it cannot stop all the attacks that may ever be planned, such as the deadly attacks on the London transit system that killed 52 people in July 2005. And each time that a terrorist is convicted in court, the other people looking to undertake acts of terror learn more about the methods the authorities use to stop them.
MI5 chief Jonathan Evans says his agency's counter-terrorist operations have had "a chilling effect on the enthusiasm of the plotters."
According to Andrew's book, the Security Service believes that while the risk of an Islamist terror attack remains high, the risk is not currently increasing.
Taking a more long-term view, however, Andrew told The Associated Press that he believes "it is too early to tell whether the 'chilling effect' is a short-term fluctuation or a long-term trend."
With files from The Associated Press
