This chapter seeks to conceptualize and analyze U.K. community engagement aimed at countering violent extremism in the U.K. It does so by focusing on the inception and experience of the Muslim Contact Unit (MCU), a small specialist police team in the Metropolitan Police in London during the period 2002-2007. This focus serves to place the subsequent large scale U.K. government led Prevent project in context. The author's insider status as co-founder and former head of the MCU is transparent throughout and draws on his new book 'Countering al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership' published by Hurst in London.

The paper highlights the paradoxical position of certain Salafi and Islamist communities in London who have consistently demonstrated skill, courage and commitment in countering al-Qaida propaganda and recruitment activity while simultaneously facing ill-founded criticism from other Muslim communities and secular political lobbyists for creating the conditions that gave rise to the al-Qaida phenomena. In doing so the paper compares the experience of Salafi and Islamist communities living in London during an ongoing terrorist campaign by al-Qaida with Jewish and Irish Catholic communities living in London during earlier terrorist campaigns against the UK’s capital city. In each instance community policing is shown to have a crucial role to play in terms of reassurance for minority faith communities and the prevention of terrorism. However, the intersection between policing and counter-terrorism is shown to produce tensions that may weaken minority community confidence in policing and thereby reduce proactive community support for counter-terrorism measures. At this intersection a London policing initiative is shown to have developed proactive counter-terrorism partnerships with Salafi and Islamist community groups of a pioneering nature. In consequence the same critics who conflate Salafis and Islamists with an urgent terrorist threat to London have accused this policing initiative of appeasing extremism.

If it is assessed against an objective of reducing the number of Muslims recruited or inspired to commit terrorist acts in the name of al-Qaeda, then the U.S.-led, UK-backed war on terror launched in the aftermath of 9/11 has failed demonstrably. This performance-related assessment, as William Tupman and Carina O'Reilly argue, favors examining counterterrorism experience and the consistency of government conduct during the war on terror (Tupman and O'Reilly 2004). Such an approach, however, tends to expose the disregard the architects of the war on terror had for counterterrorism experience and policy-makers in the U.S. or UK have not adopted it in the six years since 9/11. Performance measurement may be routine in other areas of government-sponsored activity, but the war on terror has always been presented as a separate and exceptional activity dealing with an extraordinary enemy where familiar rules of engagement and conventional government behavior do not apply. However, in writing this introduction on 9/11 in 2007, it is apparent that the failure of the response to the world's most dramatic terrorist attack has finally become clear to many who supported it for the major part of its duration. Not that there is a consensus about the nature and extent of the failure. Nor is there a willingness to look to prior counterterrorism experience that might have been used to promote a measured, effective, and counterintuitive response to 9/11. Rather, notwithstanding moves to re-brand the war on terror in softer tones with particular emphasis on counterinsurgency “hearts and minds” approaches (Kilcullen 2006), the sixth anniversary of 9/11 marks the culmination of a poorly targeted military led response that has unintentionally boosted al-Qaeda credibility and recruitment.

In a post 9/11 context, Muslims' responsibilities as active citizens are being increasingly framed by anti-terror measures, which encourage internal community surveillance so that the responsible Muslim citizen is expected to work with the authorities to help reduce the risk of terrorism. However, in the aftermath of a series of bombings and attempted bombings in the UK, there has been little reflection about how, and the ways in which, Muslim communities can be engaged for the purposes of counter-terrorism, including counter-radicalisation, and certainly no substantial academic research. The following article sets out a brief framework that might serve to set out the main components of a critically reflective approach to engaging with Muslim communities for the purposes of counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation.