The UK Prime Minister has announced an anti-terror task force to clamp down on the “poisonous narratives” of radical preachers who target recruits in schools, jails and mosques. However, some fear the government’s efforts could actually worsen extremism.

According to the Daily Mail, the unit was launched by Prime

Minister David Cameron in the wake of the brutal murder of Lee

Rigby, a 25-year-old drummer in the British Army. Rigby was

beheaded in southeast London’s Woolwich neighborhood by two men who

said the murder was motivated by the UK’s involvement in the

Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The Tackling Extremism and Radicalization Task Force (TERFOR) will

be composed of key Cabinet ministers, including Deputy Prime

Minister Nick Clegg, Home Secretary Theresa May and Chancellor

George Osborne, as well as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir

Bernard Hogan-Howe and Director General of the Security Service

Andrew Parker.

“We are looking at the range of powers and current methods of

dealing with extremism at its root, as opposed to just tackling

criminal violent extremism. And we will look at ways of disrupting

individuals who may be influential in fostering extremism. We

cannot allow a situation to continue where extremist clerics go

around this country inciting young people to commit terrorist acts.

We will do everything we can to stop it,” an unidentified

source told the Daily Mail.

TERFOR will study a number of young people who have become

radicalized, like Rigby’s murderers, the newspaper reported. The

source stressed that “there is no question of restricting freedom

of speech — this is about preventing people spreading the message

of extremism and radicalization in a totally irresponsible and

reckless way.”

Last week, three men were taken into custody for anti-Muslim speech

on Twitter and Facebook, and one was charged with “malicious

communications” on Facebook. Two others were arrested under the

Public Order Act “on suspicion of inciting racial or religious

hatred.”

While Cameron asks UK Muslims to be more proactive in condemning

Islamist terrorism, there are hundreds of videos promoting terror

and telling British Muslims to wage jihad available on the

Internet, including Al-Qaeda training videos and sermons.

Google chief Eric Schmidt, whose company owns YouTube, believes

some of the videos could help intelligence services and police

track down potential terrorists. “We have taken the decision

that information, if it’s legal, even if it’s despicable, will be

indexed,” Schmidt said during the Hay literary festival.

UK Home Secretary Theresa May said on Sunday that it is “essential”

to grant intelligence agencies the capacity to access

communications data, despite overwhelming opposition to the Draft

Communications Data Bill revealed last year.

The bill — widely known as the ‘snooper’s charter’ — would have

given agencies, including police and intelligence services, access

to information and data collection by Internet service providers,

including web browsing histories, social media messages and online

gaming, storing them all for 12 months.

Shortly after the killing last week, UK authorities slammed the

media for giving airtime to radical cleric Anjem Choudary, who

refused to condemn the attack. “A mistake of the BBC to invite

Anjem Choudary onto the telly tonight,” shadow Defense

Secretary Jim Murphy wrote on Twitter.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has decried Rigby’s murder in a

statement on its website, saying that “after Woolwich, we

understand the Prime Minister needs an effective strategy in the

face of such a horrific instance of extremism.”

“The killers of Drummer Lee Rigby attempted to sow division

amongst Britons through the propaganda of their deed. Yet in large

numbers, British Muslims stood up and declared loudly and clearly

that this murder was not in our name,” the MCB said.

However, the group went on to stress that it still hoped “wisdom

prevails” in how the government handles the issue: “We

must be vigilant and ensure we do not inadvertently give into the

demands of all extremists: Making our society less free, divided

and suspicious of each other. Lessons from the past indicate that

policies and measures taken in haste can exacerbate

extremism.”

This article originally appeared on: RT