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They are more than 2,000 miles from our shores and have little interest in coming home... but if the British jihadists do return, we should be very worried.

Battle-hardened, exposed to appalling brutality and filled with anti-Western hatred, many of the 500 or so will be looking to carry on the struggle in the UK.

And those who have come back already will be frustrated that they are not able to fight in Syria and Iraq and they will also want to do us harm.

Prime Minister David Cameron is worth listening to when he tells us that ISIS, “are also planning to attack us here at home in the United Kingdom.”

Like the jihadists who murdered 52 innocent civilians in the 2005 7/7 blasts that tore London apart, these ones also want to see the streets run with blood and body parts on TV.

In their twisted, deluded minds they want to attract attention at any cost – even if it sparks hatred and revulsion.

And this latest batch of jihadists have had a huge and murderous playground to train in.

They represent a greater threat than the IRA did to mainland Britain for more than three decades. Remember how just the idea of a small cell of IRA bombers struck terror across Britain. Their primary target was the British economy and not always the deaths of civilians – and they occasionally gave warnings.

Unlike the IRA the jihadists do not care about being witnessed or recorded on CCTV. So that makes just about any crowded public place in Britain a target.

After all, they will die anyway and that makes them even more indiscriminate.

As was shown by the 7/7 atrocities, bombs are not as difficult to make as most people might imagine. Guns will be easy for them to obtain, though bullets may be harder to find.

And while the bloodshed is 2,000 miles away at the moment, there’s a very big risk it could soon be coming to a street near you.