Islamist terrorism plans ‘funded by British benefit system’

Zakaria Boufassil, 26, was convicted yesterday of supplying £3,000 cash to a terror suspect. Mohamed Ali Ahmed pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing
Zakaria Boufassil, 26, was convicted yesterday of supplying £3,000 cash to a terror suspect. Mohamed Ali Ahmed pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing
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Hundreds of thousands of pounds in British benefits have been used to fund Islamist terrorism, it was claimed yesterday after a Birmingham man was convicted of passing cash to a suspect in the Paris and Brussels attacks.

The government faces calls for an inquiry into the scale of benefit fraud linked to jihadist causes as counterterrorism officers confirmed that taxpayers’ money has paid for weapons and travel to the so-called Islamic State.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told The Times that “several hundred thousand pounds in small remittances have been used to fund terrorism in one way or another” in recent years. He said: “[Such activity] has increased during the rise of Isis. Certainly the government should ensure that