Thousands of Islamist extremists live in Britain today according to a leaked government report, London’s Telegraph newspaper reported Sunday. Here are some excerpts from the report:

For the foreseeable future the UK will continue to be a high-priority target for international terrorists aligned with al Qaeda. It will face a threat from British nationals, including Muslim converts, and UK-based foreign terrorists, as well as terrorists planning attacks from abroad. …The majority of extremists are British nationals of South Asian, mainly Pakistani, origin but there are also extremists from North and East Africa, Iraq and the Middle East, and a number of converts.

The report says the extremists are predominantly UK-born. They are people who have been born and bred within the United Kingdom yet have decided to turn and fight their own homeland.

Much of these terrorists’ energy is spent in recruitment and fighting British troops abroad, according to the report:

Extremist networks are principally engaged in spreading their extremist message, training, fund raising and procuring non-lethal military equipment to support the jihads in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq, and sending recruits to the conflicts.

This doesn’t mean that Britons are safe, however. The document continues:

UK-based extremists, either under the direction of al Qaeda, or inspired by al Qaeda’s ideology of global jihad, have also engaged in attack planning in the UK. …The availability of training/guidance and the necessary components to build improvised explosive devices (ied), allied with extremists’ known targeting preferences, mean that ied attacks against crowded places, intended to cause mass casualties, are the most likely form of attack in the UK.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory member of Parliament for Newark, said, “We know that subversion and support for al Qaeda is taking place in campuses and prisons all over the UK. The fact that we have not been attacked for over two years should not be taken by anyone as evidence that the threat has gone away; in fact it is just the contrary.”

The fact that one of Britain’s biggest threats comes from its own homegrown terrorists reveals a great sickness in the heart of Britain. The severity of this societal sickness indicates a problem within Britain’s whole society, not just its Islamic population. A combination of abject decadence, anything-goes multiculturalism and political correctness has torn the fabric of British society apart. Patriotism is discouraged and looked down upon; British youth are free to do whatever they want. They use this freedom to fulfill their lusts. For them, there is no ideology to rally around. This generation is one unused to fighting for its freedoms. The anything-goes mentality has gone so far that even those who actively plan Britain’s destruction must be tolerated.

British Muslims, in contrast, have an ideology that gives them a sense of purpose and identity—something to be proud of as opposed to their incessantly maligned British heritage. Apparently jihad is something many can and will fight for.

For more information on how Islamic extremism has gained such a foothold in the UK, read “The Sickness in Britain’s Heart.”