Former US Defense Chief: Britain Too Slow in Addressing Homegrown Terrorism

The United Kingdom has a small but dangerous group of homegrown terrorists — one it has failed to identify and deal with, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Pearle says.

"The British have a particular problem which is a very large Anglo-Pakistani population, elements of which have been radicalized,'' Pearl told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

Story continues below.



"For some reason, the British have been very slow to clamp down on the mosques where jihad and violent jihad is routinely preached."

Pearle's remarks came one day after two men savagely butchered and beheaded a British soldier with a meat clever on a London street.

Pearle, a resident fellow with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, says that other countries have complained about Britain's slow response to its problem.

"The French, for example, complain that the Brits allow this sermonizing that then produces radicalization that has to be dealt with in other countries, not just in the United Kingdom," he said.

"So it's high time that they . . . face the fact that there is a system of recruitment into acts of violence in the name of a radical Islamist vision or ideology. And pretending that it isn’t there is not the way to deal with it."

He added that the Muslim community in the United States must be willing to react more quickly to condemn extremists who resort to violence.

"This battle has to be fought out within the Muslim community and what's missing here, I'm sorry to say, is American Muslims taking up arms against the extremists," said Pearle, who was Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan.

"There are too many Muslim organizations that are inclined to defend the extremists or accuse people who are prepared to talk about them as Islamaphobic, and that has to change.

"The American-Muslim community, which is predominantly, overwhelmingly decent and well-integrated into this country, needs to stand up and oppose those . . . propagating this radical vision."

See the Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV each weekday live by Clicking Here Now

You can listen to the Steve Malzberg Show each weekday live from 3-6 PM ET on SiriusXM 166.