UK Counter-Terrorism (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

Last week Jonathan Evans, ex-Mi5 Director General (ret'd in 2013) was interviewed on BBC Radio:

Over that period the threat has come and gone but the underlying threat has continued. Since 2013 there have been 19 attempted attacks that have been disrupted and even since the attack at Westminster we are told there have been six disruptions, so this is a permanent state of preparedness.We're at least 20 years into this. My guess is that we will still be dealing with the long tail in over 20 years' time. I think this is genuinely a generational problem. I think we are going to be facing 20 to 30 years of terrorist threat and therefore we need, absolutely critically, to persevere.

Link to article:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40890328 and link to the interview itself:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-poli...at-for-decades

In the radio programme the UK's current senior CT police officer did a Q&A interview:http://news.met.police.uk/blog_posts...errorism-60655

[davidbfpo]

In his first selected media appearance MI5's Director said there was currently "more terrorist activity coming at us, more quickly" and that it can also be "harder to detect". He added that more than 130 Britons who travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight with so-called Islamic State had died.

A couple of quotes:

They are constantly making tough professional judgements based on fragments of intelligence; pinpricks of light against a dark and shifting canvas.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41655488 and https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-mi5-islamist?

[davidbfpo]

Yet to catch up on my reading on UK CT, notably the report on the four attacks in 2017, so here is a recent article by Raffaello Pantucci, at RUSI, which was behind a paywall when published a few days ago.

The title: 'The new wave of terrorist threat comes more from the local lone wolf than international plotters'.

Here is a "taster":

This all paints a bleak picture at the start of a fresh new year and it is worth stopping a moment to recognize a more positive side. Notwithstanding this past year being a particularly grim one in terms of attacks, the UK has not faced a large-scale atrocity on the scale of the London bombings of July 7, 2005, when 56 people died. The attacks we have suffered are for the most part of a low calibre, driven by individuals of limited resources and ability.

Link:https://raffaellopantucci.com/2018/0...plotters/amp/?

In September 2017 a London BBC programme, with Raffaello as the reporter, was screened and is available (27 mins). The summary:

reveals how Isis used social media to plan and plot attacks on Westminster and London Bridge. He exposes how the terrorist group relies on encrypted messages and the dark web to coerce British Muslims to stage atrocities across the UK.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05f9y4g

I assume this podcast is available outside the UK; it is not on YouTube in its entirety.

[davidbfpo]

A BBC report, with the official stats on arrest etc, here is one passage:

There were 400 arrests on suspicion of terrorism-related offences in the year to the end of September 2017. That's the highest recorded figure, up more than 50% on the previous year.

The author concludes:

So 2017 was a bad year for attacks, while still nowhere near the levels of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. But it definitely looks like there has been an unprecedented level of activity around tracking down people who are suspected of wishing to do harm to others.

Link:https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-42420358?

[davidbfpo]

A short report (32 pgs) by Peter Neumann (Kings College ICSR) and Rajan Basra ICRS PhD student); nothing startling IMHO, but "all in one place" and published by:www.crimeterrornexus.com
Link to report: https://crimeterrornexus.com/wp-cont...180119_web.pdf

[davidbfpo]

A spin off from today's jailing of a white extremist for a murder in London last year of a Muslim man leaving a mosque, is the velocity of the radicalization process.

Sarah Andrews, his estranged partner, told detectives that Osborne was radicalised into a terrorist murderer in three weeks. Friends and family say there were no previous signs of racism or extremism. The catalyst, police believe, came three weeks before the attack, when his attitudes began to metastasise after he watched Three Girls, a BBC TV drama about the Rochdale grooming scandal. He also read extremist right wing propaganda online that left him “brainwashed” and a “ticking time bomb”.
Paul Gill, a terrorism expert and senior lecturer at at University College London, said radicalisation can be rapid, making it almost impossible to detect.
“It is rare, but violent extremism can occur quickly,” he said. “Brusthom Ziamani was a Jehovah’s Witness three months prior to his arrest for an Isis-inspired plot. It is usually expedited by primitive attack plans and a history of criminal activity and violence.”

Link:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rne-makram-ali

I had to identify the reference to Brusthom Ziamani:

A teenager inspired by the killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby has been jailed for 22 years for plotting to behead a British soldier. Brusthom Ziamani was carrying a hammer and a 12-inch knife wrapped in an “Islamic flag” when he was arrested by police in London in August.

Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-10122505.html

I recall the Islamists in the Madrid train attacks were radicalized in six weeks.

[davidbfpo]

A snippet for UK CT in 2016:

There were 62 trials for terrorism related offences in 2016. Of these, 54 persons were convicted and 8 acquitted.

Link:https://terrorismlegislationreviewer...ts-in-2016.pdf