Britain today announced to launch a new terrorism task force to crack down on radical preachers and extremism, days after a soldier was butchered and beheaded on a busy London street by two suspected Islamist extremists.
Home Secretary Theresa May said the group will look at whether new powers and laws are needed to clamp down on religious leaders and organisations who promote extremist messages and who target potential recruits in jails, schools and mosques.
Thousands of people are potentially at risk of being radicalised in Britain, she said.
"We need to look across institutions like universities, whether there is more work we can be doing in prisons," May told the BBC.
The group will include senior ministers, London's police chief and the head of the MI5 domestic security service, and is expected to meet within the next few weeks.
As the announcement of the terror task force was made, three more persons were said to be arrested in connection with the murder of 25-year-old British soldier Lee Rigby who was brutally stabbed in Woolwich in southeast London on Wednesday while he was walking near his barracks.
The two main suspects, identified as Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Oluwatobi Adebowale, 22, remained under armed guard in separate London hospitals after police shot them at the scene of the killing.
Following the disclosure that the two men were known to MI5, Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee will carry out an investigation.
