Children of 15 groomed to carry out terrorist acts, MI5 head says Michael Evans, Defence Editor, and Philip Webster, Political Editor.

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Read the MI5 chief's speech in full

Teenagers as young as 15 are being recruited by terrorist groups in Britain, swelling the number of people suspected of being involved in terrorism to 4,000, the head of MI5 said yesterday.

In his first public speech since taking over as Director-General of MI5 in April, Jonathan Evans indicated that the number of terrorist suspects has more than doubled in the past year.

Mr Evans painted an alarming picture of youngsters being turned into extremists, saying: “Terrorists are methodically and intentionally targeting young people and children in this country.

“They are radicalising, indoctrinating and grooming young, vulnerable people to carry out acts of terrorism.”

In an address to the Society of Editors in Manchester, he said: “This year, we have seen individuals as young as 15 and 16 implicated in terrorist-related activity.”

Mr Evans, who has spent most of his career in MI5 in counter-terrorism, said there remained “a steady flow of new recruits to the extremist cause”.

In a speech in October last year, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, his predecessor, said there were 1,600 people on MI5’s books who needed watching.

However, Mr Evans said the figure of known suspects had jumped to “at least 2,000”, but he admitted: “We suspect that there are as many again that we don’t yet know of.” Police sources said yesterday that they were watching 500 people who were involved in at least 80 separate terrorist plots.

Speaking with the approval of Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, Mr Evans outlined the pressures facing his service on the eve of the Queen’s Speech to Parliament today in which she will announce a counter-terrorism Bill, one of the aims of which will be to extend the time granted to the police to hold terror suspects from 28 to 56 days.

Gordon Brown will confirm as the new session of Parliament gets under way that he believes there is a case for having a higher limit to deal with some cases, although he is unlikely to put a figure on the timescale. But proposals to double the limit to 56 days are favoured by ministers.

Juveniles can be detained in much the same way as adults under the Terrorism Act. There is provision to hold them at the high-security Paddington Green police station but they have to be held in a detention room rather than a cell and must have access to an “appropriate adult” as well as to a solicitor.

Although Mr Evans made no specific reference to this controversial political issue, he said: “The terrorists may be indiscrimate in their violence against us, but we should not be so in our response to them.”

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, seized on Mr Evans’s speech to highlight the need to be cautious about any extended counter-terrorist powers.

“In order to tackle the root causes of extremism he [Mr Evans] identifies, we must do two things. First, ban those groups fuelling hatred and violence against this country; second, as Mr Evans warns in clear terms, we must avoid an indiscriminate response that would drive young Muslims into the arms of fanatics and destroy the trust of local communities,” Mr Davis said.

Mr Evans said that al-Qaeda’s campaign against Britain was now being orchestrated not just from Pakistan but from several other countries around the world. He identified Somalia, Iraq and Algeria.

He added: “There is no doubt that al-Qaeda in Iraq aspires to promote terrorist attacks outside Iraq.”

There was also “training activity and terrorist planning” in East Africa, particularly Somalia – “which is focused on the UK”. The so-called al-Qaeda “franchise” had also spread to Algeria.

Since the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, there had also been a number of examples of “serious al-Qaeda-related terrorist activity” in Europe; and in the past 12 months there had been an increase in the planning of attacks in European countries, including in Germany, Denmark and Austria.

He said there had been more than 200 terrorist convictions in Britain alone since 9/11.

Mr Evans admitted his “disappointment” that with such threats facing Britain, he was still having to divert “significant amounts of equipment, money and staff” to dealing with espionage operations run by the Russians and Chinese.

“They are resources which I would far rather devote to countering the threat from international terrorism,” he said.

The Russians and Chinese in particular, he said, were increasingly using sophisticated technical means to spy on Britain, “using the internet to penetrate computer networks”.

However, with an increase in funding provided in the latest Comprehensive Spending Review, Mr Evans disclosed that he now planned to boost MI5’s staffing levels to 4,000 by 2011. Under previous plans announced by Dame Eliza, MI5’s manpower was in the process of being increased to 3,500 by next year.

Mr Evans said that with eight regional MI5 offices now set up, 25 per cent of the staff would be working outside the London headquarters at Thames House, in Millbank, by 2011.

He said that recruiting was going well, but he was concerned about a drop in the number of women applying to join MI5.

“This is a paradox, considering that two of the last three directors-generals were women [Dame Eliza and, before her, Dame Stella Rimington], so we are now exploring ways to remedy this,” he said.