Muslim communities sould do more to tackle potential terrorists, a chief constable warns

Sir Norman Bettison, the head of West Yorkshire Police, said that Britain is facing another 20 years of having to deal with the threat from radicalised home-grown extremists. He said there was a fine line between winning the support of the Muslim community and alienating it, but he believed that Muslims needed to do more to tip off police.

"I'm looking for the community to work much more closely with the police in identifying young people that they have concerns about in terms of the people that they're mixing with, the sort of websites that they're going on to and the material that they're reading," Sir Norman said.

"That information can only come from the community itself."

Sir Norman, who is the Association of Chief Police Officer’s spokesman on preventing violent extremism, compared radicalisation to a disease and added: "I think it's a generation of treatment to prevent the infection spreading and I think that will take us probably 20 years.”

The four bombers who struck in London on July 7, 2005, came from West Yorkshire and the area is also home to Hamaad Munshi, Britain's youngest convicted terrorist (...)