What motivates terrorists:

“Jacqui Smith gave a speech this week on international terrorism which rather remarkably failed to mention the war in Iraq at all. I ask [former MI5 director general Stella] Rimington what importance she would place on the war, in terms of its impact on the terrorist threat. She pauses for a second, then replies quietly but firmly: “Look at what those people who’ve been arrested or have left suicide videos say about their motivation. And most of them, as far as I’m aware, say that the war in Iraq played a significant part in persuading them that this is the right course of action to take. So I think you can’t write the war in Iraq out of history. If what we’re looking at is groups of disaffected young men born in this country who turn to terrorism, then I think to ignore the effect of the war in Iraq is misleading.”

“These might not be unremarkable views for most Guardian readers - of whom Rimington is one. But according to Rimington, they are widely held within the intelligence service - much more so than most members of the public, and perhaps particularly Guardian readers, ever suspect.

““I don’t think I’m unusual, frankly. It’s the general public’s, or whoever’s it is, view that’s out of date.” She points out that Baroness Manningham-Buller, another former head of MI5, has been “saying broadly the same things.””

What motivates Government propaganda efforts:

“A Whitehall counter-terrorism unit is targeting the BBC and other media organisations as part of a new global propaganda push designed to “taint the al-Qaida brand”, according to a secret Home Office paper seen by the Guardian. …

“The strategy is being conducted by the research, information and communication unit, [RICU] which was set up last year by the then home secretary, John Reid, to counter al-Qaida propaganda at home and overseas. It is staffed by officials from several government departments.

“The report, headed, Challenging violent extremist ideology through communications, says: “We are pushing this material to UK media channels, eg, a BBC radio programme exposing tensions between AQ leadership and supporters. And a restricted working group will communicate niche messages through media and non-media.” …

“The Whitehall propaganda unit is collecting material to target these vulnerabilities under three themes. They are that al-Qaida is losing support; “they are not heroes and don’t have answers; and that they harm you, your country and your livelihood”. …

“It highlights the fact that Mohammed Hamid, who was convicted in February for recruiting and radicalising young men to fight against the west, was a former crack addict. …

“The RICU guidance note says the dossier has been drafted with support from Whitehall press officers “on how best to tailor such material for media engagements, presenting information to ministers, or to other stakeholders. It is in a separate, unclassified format to make it the sort of product that a minister or a press officer could use before an interview; or that could be given as a crib sheet for trusted contacts,” says the classified document.”

The predictable result:

“Dangerous and depraved: paedophiles unite with terrorists online

“For some, the internet is merely a hiding place — a web of secret corridors where all manner of shameful deeds unfold. But the police never expected that it might become a strategic platform where two groups of society’s outcasts, terrorists and child sex abusers, could meet to exchange operational secrets.

“The realisation that there might be something in common between violent Muslim fanatics known for their supposed piety and sexual deviants who prey on children has only slowly dawned on officers. Cracking the mystery of how these worlds overlap is expected to improve understanding of the mindsets of both types of criminals and has been hailed as a potentially vital intelligence tool to undermine future terrorist plots. …

“One area that British anti-terror investigators are now keen to look at is the startling similarity in the way that jihadis and paedophiles target vulnerable young people, first befriending them and then slowly introducing them to warped behaviour that comes to be seen as normal. “What we were starting to see was a similarity in grooming that goes on in paedophilia and grooming that goes on in extremism,” said the anti-terror source.”

“Link between child porn and Muslim terrorists discovered in police raids …

“British security sources confirmed that such a link had been discovered in several cases. They noted the contradiction between people supposedly devoted to theocracy and Islamic fundamentalism and their use of child pornography. “It shows that these people are very confused,” a source said. “Here they are hating Western decadence but actually making use of it and finding that they enjoy this stuff.””

[etc., etc., etc.]

And a few illustrations of the real problem “increasing cynicism” poses for political elites:

Sounds made up to me

Michael, NY, USA

i find this hard to believe.

to cut a long story short, it's the most stupid thing i've ever heard, yet it's well acknowledged that the threat we face is far from stupid.

lowest form of propaganda i've ever come across yet!

richard, gibralter,

Is it me or does this seem like an Orwellian announcement rather clumsily combining the two most despised types of person in order to maximise public emotion?

For once am I less than impressed with a Times article.

Dave C, Belfast,

Yeah sure....whatever you say...paint them as black as you can! These claims are undoubted made by the same team that insisted that there's weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq!

george, houston,

It is totally rubbish, western intelligence and hawkish media links Muslims with every obnoxious thought. This process is alienating even the liberal Muslim and pushing them into the lap of fundamentalists.

Manzoor, Peshawar, Pakistan

I have never in all my born days read a more ridiculous load of drivel.

bill, bristol, uk

So all terrorist are now pedophiles, BS!
We are being manipulated.

edwren, york,

This is the most blatant propaganda piece I have yet to read. It neatly wraps up words 'Muslim', 'terrorist' and 'paedophile' into one bundle. So as well as being extremely insulting to one billion people, it is priming us for the necessity of the 1984 database to come. Smile, you're on CCTV.

Jim, London, UK

I'm not sure what is harder to believe. That terrorists are stupid enough to hide messages in specifically targetted images or that cynically manipulative government would concoct this story to justify further destruction of our liberty. Given their track record I'm inclined to think the latter.

James, Edinburgh, UK

This Government has shown by the way that it has used anti-terrorism laws to prevent heckling from one of its own labour supporters to the freezing of assets of another country in the case of Iceland. The process is always the same be it weapons of mass destructionor databases. Spin with the media.

Smith, Swindon, UK

Whats the one subject matter to get people to 'agree' to a big brother computer system. oh yes, this government is not stupid. Devious, dodgy and down right untrustable, but not stupid.

Arthur, Newcastle,

Yeah Right! Terrorist are really dumb embedding messages in pictures that always capture the police's attention instead of pictures of say a wedding which would pass without comment. And we are dumber if we believe it.

Kevin, Workington, UK