[attach id=256430 size="medium"]Prime Minister David Cameron. Photo: AP[/attach]

David Cameron is launching a new terror task force to crack down on extremism in the wake of the horrific murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, Downing Street has confirmed.

The Cabinet level group, which will also bring in intelligence and police chiefs when needed, will focus on radical preachers who target potential recruits in jails, schools, colleges and mosques.

It will monitor trends in radicalisation and tackle “poisonous narratives”, No 10 said.

The group, which is expected to meet within weeks, will include Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Home Secretary Theresa May, Chancellor George Osborne, other key Cabinet ministers, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and Andrew Parker, the director general of the Security Service.

It will be known as the Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR), according to the Mail on Sunday.

Mosque committees should be held to account for the choice of imams they make

Downing Street said the group would focus on practical measures rather than getting bogged down in theoretical debates about Britishness and cultural values. It will examine what powers can be used to clamp down on extremist activity including how to tackle hate preachers.

The Government wants work carried out to ensure religious leaders are not promoting extremist messages and wants mosque committees to be held to account for the choice of imams they make.

Ministers believe religious leaders who promote violence must be confronted “head on”.

It comes as Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile, who until 2011 was the independent reviewer of government anti-terror laws, criticised his party’s leader for blocking the so-called ‘’snooper’s charter’’.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the peer said he was “shocked” at Mr Clegg’s decision to bring a halt to reforms that would have allowed records of internet use to be stored for a year and warned it could come back to “haunt” him.