Threat of Extremist Attack in UK is Escalating, Say Police

Photo Credit: Jaime Turner / Rex FeaturesBritain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer has said that several plots this year to murder people on Britain’s streets “directed by or inspired by terrorism overseas” have already been disrupted, with police activity to prevent extremist attacks at its highest level for years.

Scotland Yard assistant commissioner Mark Rowley said Britain’s counter-terrorism network was battling increasing radicalisation via the internet, with fears that young British people are being brainwashed by material including depictions of beheadings, suicides, murder and torture.

About 50 people a week are being referred to deradicalisation programmes, the Guardian has been told. Activity to stop an attack was said by one source to be the highest since the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 attack on London’s transport system, with the threat level escalating as the year has worn on.

Rowley, head of specialist operations at Scotland Yard, has released one of the most comprehensive statements so far about the scale of the threat posed to Britain by the rise of Islamist extremism in Syria and Iraq, where Islamic State (Isis) has come to prominence and taunted the west with depictions of brutality using social media. “The volume, range and pace of counter-terrorism activity has undergone a step-change,” Rowley said.