Al-Qaeda to recruit Muslim criminals for holy war: report

London, Sept 28 (PTI) Al-Qaeda militants have planned to recruit 800 'Muslim criminals' for their "holy war" against Britain even as the U.K. government has established a unit to tackle "the risks of extremism and radicalism in prison."

According to Britain's prison probation officers,
attempts have been made to convert one in ten of the 8,000
Muslims in the eight high-security prisons in England and
Wales to the al-Qaeda cause in the past two years.

According to a report in The Sunday Times, the
Britain's Ministry of Justice has begun a programme to
persuade convicted terrorists to give up their cause.

It is also trying to protect vulnerable Muslim inmates
from violent extremists. The radicalisation is being led by
some of the estimated 150 terrorist prisoners in England and
Wales.

The British daily said the extremists linked to
al-Qaeda planned to recruit 800 'Muslim criminals' for their
"holy war" against the U.K. even as the government has put in
place a unit to tackle "the risks of extremism and radicalism
in prison."

The number of Muslim inmates has grown over the past
decade to more than 10 percent of the jail population. Most
are youngmen, typically petty criminals serving two or three
year sentences for crimes such as burglary, theft, drug
dealing or fraud, the report said.

One of the most notorious al-Qaeda terrorists, Richard
Reid, the 'shoe bomber' who was convicted of trying to blow up
a transatlantic jet in 2001 with explosives in his trainers,
had served time as a petty crook before being radicalised. PTI