Trevor Kavanagh takes the opportunity to use the Algerian gas plant attack and the conflict in Mali in order to paint the British Muslim community as a terrorist threat:

Britain is a melting pot of nationalities and faiths, home to hundreds of thousands of Malians, Iraqis, Syrians, Somalis, Kenyans, Nigerians, Yemenis and Pakistanis.

Not all are grateful. Indeed, many are becoming outspokenly defiant. Some have colonised suburbs in major cities. One London borough is so staunchly Muslim it has become known as the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets.

Last week, hooded gangs of self-appointed religious police [in reality, probably just two individuals – ed.] roamed Muslim-populated suburbs ordering women to cover up and confiscating liquor. Police are investigating YouTube clips which show the men branding mini-skirted white girls as "naked animals".

MI5 claims thousands of young British-born Muslims have been radicalised – some of them trained in bomb-making and terror tactics in the badlands of Pakistan. That number has certainly grown in recent years.

The security forces have done a remarkable job in keeping a lid on this threat at home. It is now more than seven years since the 7/7 London bombings and the terrorists have been silent. But Mali and Algeria should remind us of Gerry Adams' chilling warning about the IRA: "They haven't gone away."

Now, as David Cameron warned yesterday, we face a global threat which could take "years, even decades" to resolve. He might have added, "if ever".

The Sun, 21 January 2013

See also Rob Ford, "Knee-jerk Islamophobia: why Trevor Kavanagh is wrong about British Muslims", New Statesman, 21 January 2013

Ford writes: "This kind of evidence-free, stereotype-laden assault on the British Muslim community has got to stop. In an era when all the relevant evidence is available at the click of a mouse, it is not acceptable for a senior journalist at the nation's most read paper to make demonstrably false claims about one of its largest minority communities. Kavanagh's article is irresponsible rabble-rousing of the worst kind."

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The Sunday Express has apologised and paid damages to a London school it falsely claimed taught an extreme form of Islam.

Northern & Shell's Sunday title published a front-page story on 12 June 2011, headlined "Spies in schools to hunt fanatics", in which it wrongly stated that the King Fahad Academy in Acton, west London, taught extreme Islam. The article, which was also published on the paper's website, falsely suggested that the academy school had been infiltrated by Islamic fanatics.

Clare Kissin, counsel for the King Fahad Academy, said in a statement at the high court in London on Tuesday: "The King Fahad Academy does not teach an extreme form of Islam, nor does it teach its students antisemitism or any form of racism and it has not been infiltrated by Islamic fanatics."

The Sunday Express apologised for the article and said it regretted the distress caused. The paper agreed to pay an undisclosed amount in damages and legal costs to the school.

Dr Sumaya Alyusuf, director of the King Fahad Academy, said in a statement: "I am very pleased that the newspaper has withdrawn and apologised for these allegations. The school can now concentrate on its mission to provide a world class international education to students through a well-balanced curriculum, which aims to produce citizens who appreciate the multicultural world in which we live."

Guardian, 31 July 2012

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