Ready to bomb militants in Libya and Syria: Cameron
28 July 2015 11:03 PM GMT
He was speaking to reporters as he landed in Indonesia on the first leg of a four-day trade mission he hopes to use to forge new political alliances to counter a threat he has described as a “death cult”.
“If there is a threat to Britain or to our people on our streets ... we are able to stop it by taking immediate action against that threat,” said Cameron. “As prime minister, I would always want to try and take that action, and that’s the case whether that problem is emanating from Libya or Syria or anywhere else.”
Britain raised its domestic terrorism alert to the second-highest level in August last year, saying an attack was “highly likely”.
Cameron was due to meet Indonesian President Joko Widodo later on Monday to discuss how the two countries could cooperate in the battle against Islamist militancy.
The Islamist threat is high on the political agenda in Britain after a gunman killed 30 British tourists at a Tunisian beach resort last month in an attack claimed by Islamic State.
Tunisia’s government said at the time that the gunman had been trained in a jihadist camp in Libya.
Britain is already taking part in US-led air strikes on Islamic State positions in Iraq and Cameron is keen to get parliamentary backing later this year to extend that aerial campaign to Syria. But he has not, before Monday, raised the prospect of bombing targets inside anarchic Libya.
PIO expert is Cameron’s anti-terror adviser
A 32-year-old Indian-origin adviser was the main writer of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent hard-hitting anti-extremism speech that was described as his most significant speech on terrorism.
Ameet Gill, born in Britain to Indian parents, was recently promoted to Director of Strategy by Cameron and was reportedly the main writer of the speech in which Cameron described the fight against terrorism as the “struggle of our generation”.
Gill, who grew up in Oxford, has been a long-serving adviser to Cameron and started working for him in 2006. A history graduate from Oxford University, Gill is well known for his aversion to the limelight, refusing any media interviews.
According to the reports, most of Cameron’s speech was an expression of Gill’s thoughts.
“Extremists do not represent Islam. But, because the Islamists self-identify as Muslims, we need to challenge them. And that needs help from Muslim communities, and from Muslim scholars who can say they are wrong,” Cameron had said in what was described as his most significant speech on the subject of terrorism.
“It is right to say these people have nothing to do with the true nature of Islam. But that, on its own, is not enough. We need to go further,” Cameron said in his speech in Birmingham last week.
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