UK Counter-Terrorism (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

An excellent overview of this small activist group, that has always maintained it was not violent, just that so many passed through who did turn to violence, by Raffaello Pantucci - on his publishers website:http://www.hurstpublishers.com/al-mu...itish-society/

One passage:

But the reality is that they (UK CT) are addressing the same threat that has been managed for the past two decades. Incremental improvements are made in our response, some bad policies are binned, and some are steered off a path to violence, but it is not clear that we are materially eradicating the ideas and groups that are ultimately behind the violence on our streets.

[davidbfpo]

There is an article, with graphs on a newspaper website:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/ma...st-attacks-uk/

Via Twitter:

Not sure why state action is labelled 'terrorism'. The author has clarified that 259 deaths due to 'state terrorism' were those killed in the Pan-Am Flight 103, that hit Lockerbie, Scotland December 21st 1988.

[davidbfpo]

David Wells is a UK-based risk analyst and his background is in Anglo-Australian intelligence analysis. The link is to the transcript of an interview:http://www.bicom.org.uk/blogpost/day...w-david-wells/

He ends with a comment wider than the UK:

There have been different waves of threats over the decades that have different defining factors and the international community needs to keep up with the current wave and its next shift. There’s a danger that some governments are still dealing with the wave of 10-15 years ago, where people in the West fitted the model of ‘radicalisation due to the lack of opportunity and education’. Unfortunately, this model (which I’m simplifying here) isn’t necessarily widely applicable today.

The interview is part of a series 'The day after ISIS', by a previously unheard of group Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre or BICOM and their explanation:

In this conversation on the future of the Middle East after the Islamic State (IS), we bring together experts to debate the prospects for reconstruction and governance in IS-held territory, the future of the Jihadi movement, how to mitigate against the return of IS fighters, and the future regional security framework. We ask the experts what policymakers need to start thinking and planning after the territorial defeat of the most dangerous terrorist group to date.

Link to the interview series, back to May 2017:http://www.bicom.org.uk/analysis/day...islamic-state/

[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?