Gordon Brown :”Core of al Qaeda is in Pakistan”

Stating that the core of al Qaeda has shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on March 22 said that Britain was about to take the war against terror “to a new level,” The News reported. Britain will release on March 24 a new counter-terrorism strategy called Contest Two, billed as the most comprehensive approach to tackling the threat of terrorism by any government in the world. Writing in The Observer, Brown said: “We know that there is an al Qaida core in northern Pakistan trying to organise attacks in Britain. We know also that there are a number of networks here… Al-Qaida terrorists remain intent on inflicting mass casualties without warning, including suicide bombings. They are motivated by a violent extremist ideology based on a false reading of religion and exploit modern travel and communications to spread through loose and dangerous global networks.” Al Qaeda is still active in Afghanistan, but the threat has crossed the border, he said, adding: “Over two thirds of the plots threatening the UK are linked to Pakistan.”