Cameron: North Africa terrorist threat 'could last decades'

David Cameron has warned the Algerian hostage crisis could be the start of a decades-long battle against Islamist terrorism in north Africa.

Three Britons are confirmed dead and three more are believed to have died after the Algerian army stormed the site at In Amenas on Saturday. Another UK resident is also thought to be dead.

One victim has been named as 46-year-old Paul Thomas Morgan.

Five hostage-takers were reported captured at the plant on Sunday.

The UK prime minister said the incident was a "stark reminder" of the terrorist threat in that part of the world and added: "This is a global threat and it will require a global response.

"It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months."

'Iron resolve'

"It requires a response that is patient and painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve and that is what we will deliver over these coming years," added Mr Cameron.

The prime minister, who will make a statement about the events in Algeria in the Commons on Monday, said there were clear similarities with the terrorist threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan, although it was on a different scale.

"What we face is an extremist, Islamist, al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group. Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in north Africa," he said.

"It is linked to al-Qaeda, it wants to destroy our way of life, it believes in killing as many people as it can. We need to work with others to defeat the terrorists and to close down the ungoverned spaces where they thrive with all the means that we have."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that Al Qaeda and other organizations on the US “terror list” are supporting the Syrian opposition.

Clinton said: “We have a very dangerous set of actors in the region, al-Qaida [sic], Hamas, and those who are on our terrorist list, to be sure, supporting – claiming to support the opposition [in Syria].” [1] (Click here to watch video)

Yet at the same time, in the above BBC interview the US Secretary of State repeats the threadbare Western claim that the situation in Syria is one of a defenceless population coming under “relentless attack” from Syrian government forces.

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