British Plot Highlights Evolution of Terror Tactics in the West

The revelation late last Wednesday (Jan. 31) that British police and intelligence services had interrupted an imminent kidnapping and execution plot in Birmingham is illuminative of the challenge Britain currently faces in dealing with its internal extremism. But perhaps more importantly, it is indicative of the broader realities of the current state of this global phenomenon.

According to media sources, the plot involved the kidnapping of a Muslim British soldier and the group of extremists in question (nine arrests have been made thus far) planned to torture him, force his "apology" for his actions in Iraq and then ultimately decapitate him -- all broadcast via the Internet from within the U.K.

The psychological impact of such an act taking place in the U.K. is difficult even to fathom -- such an act of terror would have been unprecedented in a Western nation. An entirely different approach than that of the cell that carried out the mass casualty attack on the London subway in July of 2005 (itself the first instance of a Western suicide bomb attack) -- the abduction and execution inside the U.K. of a British Muslim, broadcast over the Internet, would have introduced a new dimension of terror among Westerners.