Lessons of Lockerbie

TODAY, of all days, we in Scotland need no reminding that terrorism is a very real threat. It was 20 years ago that Pan Am Flight 103 was torn apart by a bomb over Lockerbie, killing 270 people, 11 of them on the ground.

It was a tragedy that propelled the quiet Dumfriesshire market town unwillingly into the world's consciousness. It still unites scores of families in grief across the Atlantic, even if some disagree about the guilt of the Libyan convicted of the mass murder, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

But, of course, the atrocity did not prove to be a one-off visitation of terrorism on these shores. Almost 18 months ago, terror came to Scotland once again when a car bomb was driven at the main entrance to Glasgow Airport. It was a mixture of pure luck and the fortunate incompetence of the terrorists involved that there was only one casualty this time – Kafeel Ahmed, who died as a result of the burns he sustained in the cowardly attack on June 30, 2007.

Scotland may not be as high on the terrorists' target list as London or Washington, but as Lockerbie and Glasgow – as well as Bali, Mumbai and a half-dozen other places – have shown, fanatics can strike anywhere, anytime. And it could happen again here. This is why, as we reveal today, Scotland now has its own specialist police team dedicated to foiling future attempts, the Glasgow-based Major Crime and Terrorism Investigation Unit (MCTIU). The 200-strong team, which includes some of the most experienced detectives in Scotland, will target gangsters as well as fundamentalists such as Bilal Abdulla, who last week was sentenced to serve at least 32 years in prison after being convicted of the airport attack and failed bomb attempts in London.

MCTIU brings together a range of experts who will use CCTV images, intelligence sources and good old-fashioned policing. We can only wish them well as they attempt to protect us from some of the biggest threats to our society today – not just fundamentalists with jihad on their minds, but those who flood our streets with drugs and who traffic young women into prostitution. Actually, we can do more than just wish them well. In the 21st century, the fight against big crime, especially terrorism, is no simple cops v robbers affair. Intelligence is key to everything the investigators do, and we can all play our part, from reporting dealers peddling drugs in side streets to passing on concerns about suspicious devices in public places. This is the kind of citizen action the Government's expensive TV adverts should be encouraging.

Community vigilance is increasingly important because, as Azeem Ibrahim of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University writes in these pages today, terror is not unleashed from some secret al-Qaeda HQ in a cave. The biggest threat, in fact, is from 'freelance' terrorists who become radicalised by a combination of fundamentalist propaganda and their own hatred of the societies in which they live. The nature of this new terror threat makes it all the more difficult to counter.

As Azeem Ibrahim suggests, it will take decades to beat Islamist terror and a key part of this will be to try to prevent that sort of radicalisation. Government has an important role to play in this process, but even more crucial are the voices of moderation among the Islamic community in Britain. Will young Muslims at risk of radicalisation really take heed if Gordon Brown points them towards "authoritative" religions and role models who renounce jihad? Probably not, but they may be deflected from the path of radicalisation by their own families and local religious leaders.

But every effort helps, and what government can do is stress that we are all in this together. Terrorist bombs, to say nothing of the scourge of drugs or the dangers of prostitution, are no respecter of colour or creed. Muslims will have been waiting in line at Glasgow Airport when Abdulla's Jeep exploded there last summer; the passengers of Flight 103 included three Indians, one of them a three-year-old, an Israeli and the Lebanese-American Khalid Nazir Jaafar. Another atrocity in Scotland would be just as indiscriminate, and we should all do whatever we can to help in the battle to prevent such a thing happening again.