UK severe terror threat ‘will last two years’

Sajid Javid is expected to unveil new
counter-terrorism measures today

One-Minute Read

After five terror attacks in the UK last year – four linked to
Islamic extremism and one far-right reprisal – police and security
services claim to have foiled a further terror 12 plots since March
2017.

Following a review of Britain’s counterterrorism practices in
the wake of the attacks, Home Secretary Sajid Javid will
unveil a range of new measures intended to boost
counter-terrorism efforts.

They are expected to include plans to share information held by
MI5 more widely across government departments and local agencies,
and to hire 1,900 new agents for MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to help keep
more suspects under surveillance.

There are also plans to improve the use of data by police and
MI5, a new approach to managing the far-right threat, and increases
to maximum sentences for terror-related offences.

Across the capital and in other main centres of population,
“there has been a noticeable increase in security of late” says
Sky News, with hundreds of extra armed police
officers recruited and trained to help improve response times to
critical incidents.

At any one time, MI5 and the police are running more than 500
live operations involving roughly 3,000 suspects, according to
officials.

“Globally, terrorist groups and networks of all ideologies
continue to develop organically, exploiting social media,
technology and science to further their aims and ambitions” the
Home Office said. The threat from far-right extremism was also
“growing”, it added.

Margaret Gilmore, a senior national security analyst, told Sky
News that despite the large scale dismantling of Islamic State in
Syria and Iraq, the terror group still posed a significant threat,
and it is probably only a matter a time before another attack gets
through.

More than 20,000 people who have previously been investigated
could pose a threat, says the Daily Mail, and security chiefs are
“particularly concerned about the potential risk of individuals in
the larger group being rapidly radicalised to the point of violence
before the shift is detected” .

Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, was categorised as a
“closed subject of interest” at the time of his attack.

Two weeks after the anniversary of the Manchester bombing, the
home secretary joined Theresa May and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan
yesterday to commemorate those killed in last year’s London Bridge
terror attack a year ago.