Threat of Extremist Attack in Britain is Escalating: UK Police

Local Editor

Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer has said that several plots this year [2014] 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, the Guardian published on Friday.

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

Head of specialist operations at Scotland, Yard Rowley, has released one of the most comprehensive statements so far about the scale of the threat posed to Britain by the rise of extremism in Syria and Iraq, where so-called "Daesh" [ISIL] 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. In his statement, he revealed:

• There have been 218 terror-related arrests so far this year [2014].
• So far, 16 people have been charged after returning from Syria.
• There are 66 missing persons reported to police by their families worried that they may have travelled to Syria.
• Officials are removing 1,000 pieces of illegal content from the internet each week. The material includes videos of beheadings and other brutal murders, torture and suicides. Over 80% of the material removed is related to Iraq and Syria, police said.
• There are 100 Syria-related "preventative activities" each week.

Meanwhile, up to 500 Britons are estimated to have travelled to Syria.

"The growing problem of young, impressionable, and in some cases vulnerable individuals being radicalized on-line is an increasing risk," Rowley said. "Extremist groups are using social media in highly sophisticated ways in order to recruit or persuade individuals towards their violent and warped ideologies."

One senior source said: "Syria, ISIL and the material on the web and its ability to radicalize people: that's the game-changer. Before it was person to person [radicalization into violence] but now it's the web."

Meanwhile, the terrorist level in the UK was raised to its second highest level of ‘severe' in August. The home secretary, Theresa May, said the heightened alert was "related to developments in Syria and Iraq, where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the west."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team