ETHNIC WARFARE IN BRITAIN'S SECOND CITY

The "joys of cultural diversity" are not being perceived as such by the dwindling number of white Britons living in inner city Birmingham, which is Britain's second biggest city.

Asians and Afro-Caribbeans are involved in bitter feuds over territory of their growing illegal drugs empires. Last week Aga Khan Hussain, 28, known as Oggy and alleged to be an associate of drug dealers, was shot in the shoulder and leg outside his home in Bevington Road, Aston, in the city on Thursday (17th) night.

Three days earlier convicted rapist and father-of-two Mohammed Sabir, 22, known as "Shabba", was shot 16 times with an automatic weapon while standing outside a kebab shop in Lozells Road. He later died of his injuries.

It is understood that Sabir, a leading figure in the Midland drugs trade, knew his life was in danger after being threatened in a nightclub just weeks earlier. According to local people, he was able to keep a lot of the young Asians wealthy by getting them involved in supplying heroin and cocaine. He also commanded their respect by keeping local rival Black drug dealing gangs in check.

2003 - off to a bad start for the city

These recent shootings are nothing new to the city this year, which saw two teenage girls gunned down at a New Year's Eve party.

Birmingham Police now have an almost complete picture of what really happened that night, when two of the city's most notorious black street gangs, the Burger Bar Boys and Johnson Crew, clashed with fatal consequences. Apparently the two urder victims had been sitting in a car belonging to alleged Johnson Crew member Calvin Grant.

It is understood that he was the intended target but was not in the vehicle when the gunmen attacked, firing a volley of shots from a moving car. A motorist later reported seeing two cars, including a silver Vectra, speeding close to the scene and containing young black men who appeared to be celebrating. Last night West Midlands Police said that their enquiries were "ongoing."

Ethnic free for all.

Until now the trade in importing and distributing the drug heroin, had been dominated by Turkish criminals, with Albanians and British and Jamaican Yardies accounting for much of the rest. But recent crime trends have shown that a growing number of Asians - mainly born and bred in the UK - are muscling in and becoming major players.

An Asian drugs gang insider said: "Asians used to stick to a limited customer base in our own communities but now they are prepared to take anyone's money."Because of family connections in Pakistan, heroin is readily available at a very heap price and the profits are enormous.

"Now the Asian gangs have got black gangsters working for them on a street level whereas the reverse used to be the case in the past."

Figures collated by the National Crime Intelligence Service show that Pakistani and Indian drug gangs now account for 20 per cent of heroin trafficking across Europe and into the UK.

Birmingham is home to several black and Asian gangs like the the Sikh Shere-e-Punjab and Muslim Birmingham Panthers, the Redheads and The Lynx, readily mixed with their black counterparts including he Burger Bar Boys and Johnson Crew, having grown up together.

"But the rise of the Asian drug gangs has inevitably led to clashes with the older more established black gangs and black-on-brown or vice-versa killings are becoming more and more common."

Local councillors in Handsworth, not surprisingly for political reasons deny that there is any friction between the two communities and instead point to a "lack of investment and funding" for the inner-city area.

But one black community leader admitted to rising tensions which, he claimed, originated after Indian women became targets for black criminals who mugged them for their gold jewellery.

"There was a spate of muggings back in the late 1980s and early 90s and that certainly led to some bad blood between the two communities. Last year an Asian woman shopkeeper was attacked with a machete by a black man in Lozells and that fanned the flames again.

He added. "More recently on a civic level some Asian councillors believe there is a bias in favour of the black community when it comes to Government grants like the Single Regeneration budget. These underlying tensions are there but no one will really admit to them in public."

BNP policy

The BNP has a tough on crime policy platform which cuts across ethnic divisions. Law enforcement bodies such as the Police will be freed from the paralysis of political correct policing and one of our candidates has already received positive responses from law abiding members of the Afro-Caribbean community who fear that their own children and grandchildren will be drawn into this appalling drugs inspired crime wave.