Has the UK government engaged in the politics of panic over counter Essay

Has the UK government engaged in the politics of panic over counter terrorism If so, how has this affected its counter terrorism policy - Essay Example Even though the Irish republican army was suppressed by the UK government, its repercussions are now started to develop. Moreover the government is also faced with a challenging task to tackle the rising Islamic terrorists. The armed forces of UK have gained valuable experience and expertise in counterterrorism activities through three decades of fighting the Irish republican army. This involvement was quite surprising because the understandable preoccupation with terrorists in Northern Ireland diverted the attention of British intelligence agencies from international terrorism. Before the bombing of the Pan Am flight over Lockerby, the British agencies were only engaged in dealing with the Irish nationalist. But after the indictment of two Libyan nationals, the agencies reach and scope has drastically widened. During the mid 1990’s, the UK intelligence agencies and the police were quite sure that their land was used as a base by individuals and groups for promoting, funding, and planning terrorism. However these individuals were not found by the agencies as a threat to UK. Therefore they were left to continue their activities. This policy caused wide spread anger among many foreign governments including allies of the UK government. By giving low priority to international terrorism, the British authorities did not fully understand the threat from Al Qaeda. The failure of the British intelligence agencies including that of other western agencies led to the 9/11 attacks on US soil. The Al Qaeda with its deadly networks has caused headaches for the UK authorities in recent years. The threat from AL Qaeda has increased because of the participation of UK in Afghanistan and Iraq. The UK intelligence agencies have also played a major role in destabilizing the networks of the terror organiz ation as well as blocking its funding. The counter terrorism policy