Al Qaeda in the UK

The Sunday Times is reporting that al Qaeda is setting up shop in the U.K.:

THE head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq has established a new terror network in Britain which is recruiting young Muslim fanatics to fight coalition troops.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has recently set up the group to recruit and train would-be suicide bombers and gunmen, counter-terrorism officials have said.

The new group, Ansar al-Fath — Partisans of Victory — is an offshoot of Ansar al-Islam, an organisation that is to be banned under new anti-terror rules announced by Charles Clarke, the home secretary, last week.

Ansar al-Fath provides logistical support to foreign fighters in Iraq and uses the internet to find new recruits for Zarqawi.

So would the Bushies contend that the Iraq War hasn't produced a surge of jihadism even beyond Iraq's borders? If this story is true -- and there's no reason to doubt it -- the threat continues to spread even as Iraq remains a question mark and the war on terrorism, now a war against Islamofascism, proceeds in fits and starts against a nebulous enemy.