200 British school children identified as potential terrorists....

Nothing like being groomed for a future career...

The youngsters were identified through a police scheme which aims to spot children who are vulnerable to Islamic radicalisation.

Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police and Britain's most senior officer in charge of terror prevention, said the project had intervened in at least 200 cases since it began 18 months ago.

The number has risen sharply from 10 children who were identified by the programme by June 2008.

The "Channel project", run by the Association of Chief Police Officers, asks teachers, parents and other community leaders to watch out for signs that children are being groomed by extremists or appear drawn to their views.

Sir Norman, whose force covers the area in which all four of July 7 bombers grew up, told the Independent newspaper: "What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'.

"One of the four bombers of 7 July was, on the face of it, a model student. He had never been in trouble with the police, was the son of a well-established family and was employed and integrated into society.

"But when we went back to his teachers they remarked on the things he used to write. In his exercise books he had written comments praising al-Qaeda.

"That was not seen at the time as being substantive. Now we would hope that teachers might intervene, speak to the child's family or perhaps the local imam who could then speak to the young man."

The scheme was piloted in Lancashire and the Metropolitan Police borough of Lambeth in 2007, but in February last year it was extended to West Yorkshire, the Midlands, Bedfordshire and South Wales.

This still has to be rolled out across the entire country, so the number of kids in training might be an awful lot higher...