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At least 20,000 bloodthirsty jihadis have infiltrated Syrian refugee camps and are plotting to enter Europe, a senior official warned tonight.

Lebanese Education Minister Elias Bou Saab said he fears Islamic State radicals make up at least 2% of the 1.1million Syrians living in camps across his country.

And he warned of a covert jihadi “operation” to get across the Med and into Europe. His warning came as David Cameron made a whistle-stop tour of refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan yesterday to try to win back public support on the Syria crisis.

“My gut feeling is they (IS) are facilitating such an operation. To go to Europe and other places... From Turkey to Greece,” Mr Bou Saab said.

“You may have, let’s say, 2% that could be radicals. That is more than enough. We have had that also with our camps here - you find 2-3% of them.”

(Image: REUTERS/Stefan Rousseau/Pool)

The stark warning comes as Britain prepares to take 20,000 of the most desperate Syrians from the very same camps, following huge public demand for action.

It will pile more pressure on Ministers to ensure the people helped by the vital aid programme are properly vetted before they arrive.

Lebanon is one of the key areas for British aid programmes after being overwhelmed with more than a million Syrian refugees since the bloody civil war began.

Mr Bou Saab is closely involved in education programmes for the Syrian kids living in the sprawling tented camps.

(Image: PA)

But he said IS are now using the widespread poverty and desperation as recruiting sergeants for their bloodthirsty cause.

“No hope; no work; no education; poor. All this will become easy to recruit,” he warned.

The Minister even revealed militants have already launched raids on Lebanese soldiers from inside the refugee camps.

“When the Lebanese army were kidnapped in Lebanon, the people who kidnapped them came out of the camps,” he said.

“We had them in camps in Lebanon and we were taking care - and all of a sudden they came out of the camps.

“They went against the army, they kidnapped the soldiers and they took them to the mountains.”

Mr Bou Saab also had words of warning for David Cameron over his desire to oust brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad from Syria.

(Image: Getty)

The Lebanese Minister said booting out Assad could leave a dangerous vacuum and plunge the whole region – and potentially the whole of Europe - into further chaos.

“In my opinion a fair election should decide (Assad’s fate),” he said.

“Until we get there, there should be talks because if the regime fails in Syria now we will have what we are seeing in Libya.

“And then all of a sudden they will be in Lebanon. After Lebanon they will be on the shores and you will never know where they end up.

“Because of the unknown, because of all we have seen with Daesh, ISIS and the rest and their barbarian thinking, it will be very difficult for someone to say now OK - if you get rid of the regime who is going to take over?”

Mr Cameron flew by luxury jet to Lebanon to be filmed spending just 50 minutes at a camp in the Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border.

After meeting impoverished families and making a brief appearance at a school he flew on to Jordan for an equally-fleeting visit to al-Za’atri refugee camp.

“I wanted to come here to see for myself and to hear for myself stories of refugees,” Mr Cameron said.

The posing PM swapped suits at least three times during his 12 hours abroad and flew to each fleeting photo op by Chinook helicopter to save time.

(Image: Getty Images)

In a further PR blitz Mr Cameron even appointed a special ‘Minister for Syrian Refugees’ - anonymous backbencher Richard Harrington.

The whirlwind trip was dreamed up by Downing Street in response to fierce criticism of the PM’s comments a fortnight ago that taking “more and more refugees” was not the answer to the migrant crisis - just hours before the tragic pictures of drowned toddler Aylan Kurdi emerged.

Having been shamed into taking 20,000 more refugees and pledging an extra £100million in aid, the PM is now desperate to switch the blame to other countries which have given less cash.

“It’s a fact the World Food Programme and the UNHCR are underfunded,” he said.

“If other counties did as much as Britain has done, we could solve that problem.”

Stats show the UK is the second-largest aid donor to the Syria crisis after the US, having spent more than £1billion since the civil war began.

(Image: REUTERS)

By contrast Germany has given £633million, oil-rich Saudi Arabia £387million and France just £70million.

“We have given ten times more than some of the other countries in our region,” the PM raged.

“I would encourage others to step up to the plate and spend and invest in the way that Britain has done.

“There is a moral imperative to do that - and also it’s a moral imperative to that because there is a very real connection to the migration crisis in Europe.”

The PM claimed “hundreds of thousands more” migrants would be headed for Europe were it not for the UK’s investment in refugee camps on the Syrian borders.

But UN aid agencies - while welcoming the cash - warned Britain’s efforts were no more than a “drop in the ocean”.

Tom Thorogood from the United Nations Development Programme said: “It’s definitely the right strategy, but it’s still just a drop in the ocean.

“More needs to be done here. These countries are in effect being used like a holding pen, a buffer zone.

“And the strain on the country is massive, especially Lebanon. It’s such a small country, it’s so densely populated – it’s a strain.”